


36 Questions

by angelinthecity



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: 36 Questions Experiment, Bickering, Drunken Kissing, Eventual Smut, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, romantic comedy tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22067110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelinthecity/pseuds/angelinthecity
Summary: Years after they mysteriously lost touch and with the filming of the sequel now right around the corner, Luca has a plan to get the estranged Armie and Timmy back to where they once were. It involves ten days on a Mediterranean cruise ship and 36 questions, but not all goes according to plan. Or does it?“Tell me again, why do we have to do this?” Armie held the phone in one hand and rubbed his face with the other, frustrated. The last thing he needed right now was an extra assignment. ”I know the kid already. My tongue has been in his mouth, remember?”[COMPLETED Feb 17, 2020]
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 1082
Kudos: 679





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year and thank you for all the support on my stories during the past year! This story is my thank you gift, and oh how I had missed writing about these two fools… <3
> 
> The [36 questions](https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/36_questions_for_increasing_closeness) that will make an appearance as a plot device a little ways into the story are from [Dr Arthur Aron’s psychological study](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0146167297234003), and they have been proven to “generate interpersonal closeness or even lead to love”. You may remember them from a few years back when the science experiment went viral due to [this column in New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/style/modern-love-to-fall-in-love-with-anyone-do-this.html).

_April 2027_

_A phone call from Milan to Malibu_

“Tell me again, why do we have to do this?” Armie held the phone in one hand and rubbed his face with the other, frustrated. The last thing he needed right now was an extra assignment. ”I know the kid already. My tongue has been in his mouth, remember?”

“He’s not a kid anymore,” Luca’s voice reminded him at the other end of the line. “He’s thirty-one. Besides, you haven’t really talked to him in, what, seven years?”

“Eight years,” Armie muttered into the phone and wanted to add:_ and five months, two weeks, and three days. _An internal clock had been counting the days for him since that night at the Beverly Hilton and he had been unable to stop it.

“Exactly. We can’t have you show up on location as two strangers. The script calls for two men who know each other inside out and have longed for the other for twenty years.”

“Okay, I get it,” Armie sighed. “But can’t we just do something simple, like catch up over dinner? All of us? You pick the restaurant, any restaurant, I’ll pick up the check. Why do we have to be stuck on a boat for ten days? Can’t you at least join us?”

Luca was adamant. “No, no, no, Armie. It has to be just the two of you, and the cruise ship serves an important purpose.”

Armie rolled his eyes and slumped down onto the only armchair he had had time to unwrap so far in the empty house. Luca was known for his eccentric preparation methods for his actors, but he had really outdone himself this time.

“And what might that purpose be?” Armie knew that Luca hated it when he got sarcastic but he couldn’t help it.

“To stop you—both of you, but especially you—from running the moment things start to get, you know, _difficile_.”

“What things? Why would things get difficult?”

Suspicion had started to creep into Armie’s tone and Luca realized he was on the verge of saying too much, but luckily Armie didn’t notice and, instead, relented: “Fine. Fine. You’re the boss. But I don’t think you’ll get him to agree to this. I’m sure he’s way too busy for this kind of nonsense.”

“Timmy already said yes.” Luca felt as smug as he sounded.

“He did?” Armie was genuinely surprised—and a little pleased. “But he has those guild events coming up next month. He won’t have time to cruise around the Mediterranean.”

Luca filed away the observation that despite the men not being in touch anymore, Armie seemed to be surprisingly aware of Timmy’s schedule.

“He said he would prioritize this.”

“Huh. Okay then.”

A pause.

Luca waited, and as he had suspected, Armie continued: “No, wait, what did he mean when he said he would prioritize this? Us? Me and him? No, he meant the film, right? The production of the sequel in general?”

“Armie.”

“Yes?”

“You sound like a schoolboy.”

Luca’s tone was scolding, but when he hung up the phone in the tastefully decorated study of his Milanese apartment, he was smiling. The smell of Ferdinando’s specialty, rosemary-roasted veal, wafted from the kitchen, the magnolias outside their window were starting to bloom, and above all, the plan was officially in motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. This was just a little prologue and I’ll update tomorrow with the next chapter where the story will properly start as the boys board the ship. 
> 
> I’ve worked on this story throughout the fall and it has already been written till the last line. I hope you’ll enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“This way to your table, Mr Hammer.”_

As he snakes along the endless, carpeted hallways, Armie keeps his hat pulled low over his eyes. It doesn’t seem likely that the fellow passengers, mainly retirees from Russia, China, and Northern Europe would be ones to recognize him, but better safe than sorry.

The ship’s cheery announcements ring in his ears_: _

> _Welcome aboard! We hope you will enjoy your time with us on the Mediterranean Princess. The dinner will be served in the Jubilee restaurant an hour after our departure. Please let our wonderful crew escort you to your designated table and remember the dress code: smart casual_. _Ahoy!_

Armie still can’t believe that Luca managed to talk him into this, but if he truly thinks about it, it isn’t the worst preparation for a movie he’s had to do. Ten days on a luxury cruise ship? With bars, a sundeck with pools, views to the azure blue sea and tons of time to do as he pleases? Beats dancing lessons and dialect coaches.

Mostly, the whole thing feels silly to him, however. Futile. Unnecessary. Like he and Timmy would need time to get to know one another? Just because they haven’t spoken more than two words since that night at the Beverly Hilton, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know each other. They know each other very well, thank you very much. Too well, actually. That was what had led to the whole thing.

Armie shuts out the thoughts of the infamous Beverly Hilton and concentrates on not getting lost in the hallways. They all look the same to him, but he finally finds his cabin on the twelfth deck. He likes the even number of it, 1212. Should be easy to remember when he wanders back alone from the ship’s whiskey bars in the wee hours.

The doors to the cabins next to his are closed and when he passes them, no sounds carry to the hallway, so he assumes his neighbors haven’t arrived yet. He hopes that they won’t turn out to be too loud, or too social, or too nosy. See, his plan for the ten days is to hang out with Timmy the required amount to keep Luca happy, but not too much, in order to keep things on the safe side between them. No heart-to-hearts or late-night drinks, and they should be fine. The rest of the time he will just relax on his private balcony that he had been promised.

Once inside his cabin, Armie opens the blinds and checks out the view from said balcony: at the moment it’s just the port of Barcelona but soon it will be exchanged for the blue of the Mediterranean Sea.

“Right,” he says to himself as he pushes his luggage out of the way to the far corner of the room and tries to decide what to do.

A nap? A tour of the ship? A dive into the stack of books he’s brought with him, knowing there wouldn’t be much to do in the cabins otherwise? Ultimately he decides on a quick nap to combat the jet lag, and sets an alarm for quarter to eight. That should be enough to get him out of his boarding outfit—shorts, sandals, and a cap with a logo of his local hardware store—and into something resembling smart casual by dinnertime.

Armie flops on the bed and falls into dreamless sleep in two minutes.

If Armie’s name rings any bells with the hostess at the dinner restaurant, the young woman dressed in a pristine white Julie McCoy-esque uniform doesn’t let it show.

“This way to your table, Mr Hammer.”

She shows Armie to his designated table that seats six, but only four of the seats are taken when he arrives. Armie sits down and introduces himself to his dinner companions: a couple on their 50th wedding anniversary trip from Kenton, Ohio, and two elderly women with whiter-than-white fluffy hair, who turn out to be sisters from a small town in Denmark. They have identical, buoyant laughs that remind Armie of pigeons cooing.

It’s already past eight, and the dining room keeps filling up, the passengers and their glasses equally bubbly with excitement of the first evening on the ship. The waiters have just picked up Armie’s and his tablemates’ drink orders and they have made polite small talk by wondering if they would stay as a company of five or whether another passenger would still join them, when one of the Danish sisters coos and points behind Armie:

“Oh, that darling young man is walking this way, I wonder if he’s our missing sixth?”

Armie starts to turn around, even though he already has a pretty good guess about what he will see. He has to be somewhere on this ship, after all.

And Armie is right.

The wild hair, the long, sweeping stride of his walk.

The smile that is simultaneously abashed and unabashed.

The gangly legs that almost trip on something when his eyes catch Armie‘s gaze.

When Timmy gets to their table, they shake hands. No hug.

“How long has it been?” Timmy asks as he settles into his seat in good spirits, but with a slight edge of the old, jittery nerves that he hides behind the fuss of shoving his phone in his pocket. His hair points mostly in the correct direction and he tries to sweep at the misbehaving front section after he realizes how polished everyone else looks. He misses one spot and Armie wants to reach over and fix it.

“You two know each other?” chirps Cindy, the robust Midwestern lady of 50 years of marital bliss.

“Yes, old friends,” Timmy admits and Armie likes that he didn’t say colleagues. “Just haven’t seen each other in a while.”

As Timmy turns to look at Armie, his face is, just once, inscrutable.

Cindy leans over the table, eyes glinting with curiosity, sensing there’s more to the story. “Oh?”

She’s very much about to launch into a barrage of questions, but luckily they are saved by the ship’s captain who takes over the microphone at that moment and calls for everyone’s attention.

“O captain, my captain,” Armie quips as he reaches for his champagne.

It goes over the heads of everyone except Timmy, but they all quiet down to hear the captain’s welcome address to the crowd.

Armie discovers that the downside of having elderly dinner companions is that they are the nosiest people he has ever met. The upside is that they all retire to bed quite early, leaving Armie and Timmy alone at the table.

“So,” Timmy starts after the last of the Danish sisters has left the table and wished them goodnight.

“So.”

“It’s been a while.”

Armie smooths over the wrinkle on the white tablecloth. “Seven, eight years, I think? At the—”

“Oh yeah, at that thing.”

As if both of them didn’t remember every touch, every frantic whisper, every clack of a heel from that night.

Armie tells Timmy that he still looks the same. “They postponed the sequel all these years for nothing, since you refuse to age. We could have done them both back to back.”

“If we had, maybe we would still be texting every day.”

Just like that, Timmy hurls the elephant in the room onto the table as if it’s nothing. Thump_._ Armie can practically hear the empty champagne flutes chime on the impact.

He distracts, doesn’t want to appear being affected in any way. “Who’s the one who made me wait ten days for a reply the last time I tried?”

“Touché.” Timmy’s properly chastened, but his eyes don’t hide from Armie’s and they flicker with a _so you counted? _“Anyway, you don’t look too bad yourself.”

“I wasn’t fishing for a return compliment.”

“I know. I meant it.”

That was one of the best and the worst things about Timmy. He’s always meant what he’s said to him.

Armie has no idea how this conversation is supposed to go, but none of this feels like they are doing it right.

“So I guess we’re stuck here now,” he tries, just to say something.

“I wonder what Luca is expecting us to do here.”

“Enjoy a week of bingo and crab dinners with Cindy?”

“Ha.” That’s a genuine smile from Timmy, and Armie likes it.

“Just hang out, I guess?” Armie suggests. “Like we used to.”

“Like we used to.” Timmy doesn’t do more than repeat what Armie just said, but he manages to dress the words with meaning that hadn’t been there the first time.

“Maybe we can start tomorrow? I’m kinda beat. Jet lag,” Armie adds as an explanation. “I only flew in this morning.”

“Oh. Yeah, me too. Sure. Should we...?” Timmy gestures towards the dining room exit.

They leave the restaurant, walk past the row of shiny, newly-stocked cruise ship bars and joke that they would make good use of them later. They would have nothing but time for ten days.

“Which floor?” Armie asks, ready to push the button when they enter the equally shiny, mirrored elevator.

“Twelve.”

“Oh, me too.”

Timmy shrugs. It doesn’t seem to mean anything to him.

They exit the elevator down the same hallway, and when they are almost at Armie’s door and Timmy just keeps following his lead, Armie finally asks: “Where did you say your cabin was?”

Timmy stops and points at the sign on the door of the cabin next to him: “Actually, here. 1214.”

A thousand things go through Armie’s mind but all he says is: “Right.”

“What do you mean? Why?”

Armie points at the next door along the same aisle. “1212. That’s me.”

“Oh.”

Having Timmy sleep just behind the wall from him isn’t going to be a problem, absolutely not. The headboard of his bed is probably facing Armie’s, just on the other side of the thin wall. That’s how the cabins are usually arranged. Not that Armie knows for sure, but that’s what he suspects. But maybe the walls aren’t that thin, they probably have to be pretty soundproof, because people surely get up to all kinds of things on these ships, right? Anyway, it makes sense; the production company has probably put them on the same reservation and thus they have been given cabins next to each other. Still, the idea of Timmy just on the other side of the wall all night, every night, while Armie is in his own bed, sleeping naked, and Timmy probably doesn’t have any clothes on either—

The rambling of his thoughts causes Armie’s pulse to quicken, and he fights to appear normal when Timmy wishes him a prompt and casual goodnight and slips into his room without waiting for a reply. Left standing behind the closing door, Armie takes a deep breath and replies, to no one in particular in the empty hallway: “Good night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and all the encouraging and enthusiastic comments on the prologue.
> 
> Updates on Mondays and Fridays from now on, and yes, tomorrow happens to be a Friday so there’ll be a third update in a row! But then the next one only after the weekend :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Here’s your assignment for the cruise,” Armie reads._

In the morning, Armie finds Timmy in the breakfast cafeteria, sitting at a table alone and already scarfing down a plate of pancakes. There are no designated seats like there were at dinner the previous night, but Timmy waves at him from afar. They should probably eat together, it would be weird not to, so Armie acknowledges him with a quick nod before going to the buffet to fill up his tray with coffee, bacon, sausages, and eggs.

He arrives at the table with his loot. “Good morning.”

Timmy tries to form the same words through the mush of pancake in his mouth, and they continue with small talk—how did you sleep; the coffee is only passable but I guess we’re stuck with it—until their phones ping, both at the same time.

Baffled, they reach for them and realize they have both gotten the same email.

“It’s from Luca.”

“_Here’s your assignment for the cruise_,” Armie reads.

They click on the attached document and Armie’s connection is faster, so while Timmy still waits for his to load, Armie already eyes the title of the page, then quickly scrolls further, and further, and further. What is this?

“What is this?” Timmy wonders the same thing out loud when he gets there himself.

“_36 questions to generate interpersonal closeness_,” Armie starts.

“What the—“

“_The following questionnaire and experiment have been developed by Dr Arthur Aron, and they are designed to bring the participating partners closer in a quick fashion. Read the questions out loud to your partner and take turns in answering them or performing the required task. Make sure you do all of them during your time on the ship. This is for your own benefit.”_

Timmy stares at his phone for a long moment, then decides that the task doesn’t sound too bad. “At least we’ll have something to do.”

“Are you serious? These are meant for strangers,” Armie waves at his phone dismissively. “We already know each other.”

Timmy’s words are measured as he places his phone carefully next to his breakfast plate. “_36 questions to generate interpersonal closeness_. Do you really think we are close these days?”

“I mean,” Armie shrugs.

He wouldn’t call them close, but what do you call someone who’s laid with you naked, kissed you dozens of times, but it has all been for the camera, and the first time he had begged for it to be real, Armie had shut him down and he still doesn’t know whether it had been against, or due to, his better judgment? How do you describe your relationship with someone whom you’ve known and wanted, and wanted specifically because you’ve known him, while being very aware of how things would go if you gave in?

Armie doesn’t dare to look at Timmy now, because he fears all he would see would be his eyes from those certain nights.

“I just don’t think it’s going to get us anywhere, that’s all,” he concludes.

“Alright then.” Timmy grabs his fork and resumes eating his breakfast, pointedly calm.

Armie watches him, unnerved by Timmy’s non-reaction. “What?”

“Well, Luca seems pretty adamant about it. That we need to get back to a place where we actually have a connection again.”

“We’re actors. That’s the whole point. We don’t need a real connection.”

Timmy winces almost imperceptibly and Armie wishes he could take it back.

Timmy steels himself nevertheless. “Come on, what else do we have going on here? This was the purpose of putting us here for ten days. It wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Armie rubs his face. It’s too early for this and he still isn’t over his jet lag.

“Fine. How many tasks were there again?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Thirty-six? Fuck, I swear…” Armie takes a deep breath. “Okay. So if we do four per day, we should be done by the time we dock in Rome at the end of this?”

Timmy lifts his gaze from the pancakes. The hope raises its head in his eyes. Does this mean Armie is going to go along with this?

“Yes.”

“Okay then,” Armie sighs. “But only four per day, and the rest of the time I get to relax and enjoy beers on the sundeck, which is what I came here to do. Deal?”

“Deal,” Timmy smiles. Then, excited: “Want to get the first one over with?”

“It’s disconcerting how eager you are to do this.”

Timmy doesn’t listen and instead, scrolls on his phone down to the first question and asks: “_Question #1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest_?”

“Um, let’s say Luca. I’d like to give him a piece of my mind right now.”

“I think you’re supposed to give the answer a little more thought than that.”

“Listen, I said I would do this. Are you going to be scrutinizing all my answers too? You got a reply, kid, now we move on.”

Timmy raises his palms in surrender, knowing there would be no point in arguing with Armie when he got like this.

“My turn.” Armie takes the phone from Timmy and reads the next question. “Oh, this is a tailor-made question for you. _Question #2._ _Would you like to be famous? In what way?”_

“What do you mean, tailor-made?” Timmy sounds irritated by Armie’s tone. “I never wanted to be famous for the sake of it, but you know as well as I do that if one wants to do what we do, and wants to work on the best things with the best people, it may be an inevitable by-product.”

“But did you want it?”

“I guess it gives you certain advantages. Opportunities.”

“But do you feel like you’ve lost anything because of it? Has it been worth it?”

“Well, I guess the sum of things is something one needs to assess, what with the losing of anonymity and stuff. But come on, none of this can be new to you, you’re the one who taught me half of this. So I don’t get it. Are you trying to get something specific out of me?”

Armie realizes that Timmy couldn’t possibly know what he’s getting at. It had been Armie’s own decision, and expecting Timmy to read his mind now, more than eight years later, is useless.

“No, I guess not. Moving on. Your turn. On one condition, though. We do the rest of today’s questions over beers on the sundeck?”

“Agreed.”

They find two sun loungers at the far end of the sundeck. There aren’t many people around yet, just a flurry of children at the kiddie pool and Armie tries to protect his beer from the splashes that get thrown their way every now and then.

The waitress who had brought their drinks had looked at Timmy for longer than needed, polite but approving. No idea if she recognized him or just thought he was cute, but Armie bet on the latter. So far they hadn’t encountered any autograph seekers and the over-70 crowd hadn’t asked either of them for selfies, either.

Timmy pulls out his phone. “So. The third question.”

Armie groans. He had hoped that at the sight of the beers, Timmy would’ve forgotten the task for a while, but no such luck.

Timmy pretends that he didn’t hear the groan and soldiers on:_ “Question #3._ _Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?”_

Armie thinks of a recent call that he had had to make, something he had planned out and hung up on several times before letting the call go through. “Sometimes. When there’s uncomfortable business to discuss.”

“Such as?”

Armie considers for a second telling him, but what would it accomplish? Nothing. He doesn’t want Timmy’s pity. Or is he hoping that his calling a divorce lawyer would change something between them? It’s too late for that, so he just shrugs.

“Just in general.”

Timmy watches him closely. “The point of these is to be truthful.”

Damn that kid and his perceptiveness.

“Fine. I recently had to make a call that I never thought I would have to make. Happy?”

It looks like that’s all he’s willing to divulge, so Timmy doesn’t press.

“So. Your turn,” Timmy says and lays his phone on the wooden deck table between them, pushing it over to Armie’s side.

Armie asks the fourth question and Timmy replies dutifully, but seems lost in thought, scratching the edge of the table.

Discovering that the questions aren’t that bad after all, Armie suggests that they go past the decided number of four per day in order to be free of the whole damned assignment earlier. So they also resolve the fifth one, but as Timmy keeps tapping the table, Armie gets anxious and warns him that he’ll get a splinter soon if he doesn’t stop.

“I’m not going to get a splinter, I’m not a child,” Timmy huffs and points at the phone. “Ask.”

Armie rolls his eyes but reads: _“Question #6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?”_

Timmy hums. “Can I think about this a little bit?”

“Sure.”

He keeps sliding his fingers across the table, along the grains of the wood as he thinks, then breaks the silence and starts:

“Well, I think that— Ouch!”

Armie looks up. “What happened?”

Timmy has brought his palm up to his face and is inspecting it, face contorted. “I think I got a splinter. From the table.”

“Is this where I say, ‘I told you so’?”

Timmy tries to close his palm but winces again. “It got in there real good.”

“Let me see.”

Timmy presents his hand, palm up, and Armie takes off his sunglasses to have a look. Turns out the shard is not a long one, but it has slid almost all the way in under the skin, with only a smidgen of the end sticking out.

“Yeah, it’s in there for sure.” Armie lets go of Timmy’s hand and gets up. “Come.”

“Where are we going?”

“Just come,” Armie sighs.

Armie opens the door to his cabin and motions at Timmy to sit on the small couch.

“Sit there,” he says, “—and don’t pick at it. I’ll be right back.”

Armie disappears into the bathroom and comes out a moment later holding tweezers and wearing thin-rimmed glasses. Only one of those things catches Timmy’s attention.

“Armie, oh my—“

“Shut up,” Armie warns. “No old man jokes. Yes, I sometimes wear glasses now. And right now, you want me to see clearly, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Timmy agrees but can’t fully hide his amusement.

Armie’s still huffing as he sits down next to Timmy, but then Timmy’s hand is soft and fits entirely within his large one with room to spare. His thumb holds Timmy’s fingers in place as he inspects the splinter still sticking out of Timmy’s palm, and he’s suddenly aware that this is the most they’ve touched in years.

Armie looks up and Timmy isn’t looking at the splinter but at him with a gaze that doesn’t waver. It’s no longer amused either, but tender and trusting.

“Okay, so I’ll just…” Armie clears his throat and picks up the tweezers. “Hold still.”

The reply comes softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Armie blocks all other thoughts from his mind and concentrates on two things only: one, the tip of the tweezers, and two, the tiny, sharp end of the wooden shard sticking out of Timmy’s skin. Armie’s just about to catch it, when it slips away at the last moment.

“Fuck!”

“Just try again,” Timmy urges and makes zero jokes about the eyesight of old men.

Armie manages to get a hold of the splinter on his second try. He asks Timmy if he’s ready for it to be pulled out and Timmy nods. Armie keeps pinching the end of the shard tightly with the tweezers and slowly manages to remove it.

“And…there we go.” He places the minuscule culprit on the side table.

Timmy looks down at his hand still resting in Armie’s, Armie’s thumb now on the inside of his wrist. Armie wants to stroke the translucent skin and feel the soft ridges of the veins.

“Was it just the one or were there more?” Armie asks.

Timmy lifts his eyes, shrugs. “Maybe you can check? Just in case. It couldn’t hurt, now that we have the tweezers and all.”

They both know they won’t find anything, but Armie stretches Timmy’s palm taut and lifts it closer to his face; Timmy inhales a breath when Armie starts sliding his thumb slowly across the balls of Timmy’s palm, feeling for anything sharp.

One, two, three, four and then the base of his thumb. Slow sweeps over the center of his palm at the end. Sweeps that might be called caresses if this wasn’t just one friend helping another. Sweeps to make sure that there’s no more damage to his palm and to prove that they can do this, without falling into anything else.

All Armie encounters is smooth skin.

“I think you’re good to go,” he says but doesn’t let go of Timmy’s hand.

“This is nice,” Timmy says quietly and he isn’t talking about the fact that someone is helping to check his hand for splinters.

A pause.

“It took me ten days to reply to you that one time, because I wasn’t sure what to say.”

“It’s fine. It took me a week to decide to send the message.”

“Why did you?” Timmy pulls his hand from Armie’s but only to place it back, palm against palm.

Armie watches him slowly lace each of his fingers between every two of Armie’s.

“What if—“

And then Timmy’s phone rings.

They both startle and Timmy gets up to fish the phone out of his front pocket. He takes a look at the screen. “It’s…”

“Her?” Armie supplies.

“Yeah. I think I need to—“

“Sure.”

“In my room.” At least he looks apologetic.

Armie nods, and hears Timmy say a quiet hello to the phone before he’s gone. After the door closes, Armie takes off his glasses and throws himself on the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For storytelling reasons, this story won’t be going into detail with every single one of the 36 questions, but there are links to the original questionnaire in the Author’s Notes of Chapter 1 if someone wants to check them all out or even try the experiment themselves. (Oh, and if someone _does_ try it, please do report back if you want and let us know how it went! :))


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I was just putting sunscreen on you.”_

When they reconvene in the afternoon, minus one splinter, their sun loungers from the morning are already taken. Armie finds them new ones, far away from the chaos of the kiddie pool this time, but the sun is now at its high point and scorching enough that Armie starts to regret the decision soon. Any accidental splashes of water would be welcome in the heat.

A different waitress brings their beers this time, just as Timmy is slathering his arms and chest with sunscreen, and she looks at him for even longer than the one in the morning had. Armie coughs.

After she leaves, Timmy offers the sunscreen to Armie.

“Oh thanks, but I’m good. Californian, remember?”

“That doesn’t exempt you from getting melanoma. But actually no, I meant—“ Timmy turns to sit the other way on his lounger and points at his own back. “Could you—?”

“Oh.”

Armie takes the bottle, slightly intimidated by the vastness of the soft, bare back so innocently presented in front of him, the odd freckle in intriguing contrast with the skin that’s as pale as it’s always been. The boy really seems to be diligent with sunscreen.

Timmy’s spine protrudes through his skin now that he sits hunched and Armie follows it with his eyes. Timmy’s shorts are hanging really low, too. Surely he should pull them up a little bit? The tiny hairs at the bottom of his spine are barely noticeable, but the sun tints them the palest of pale gold.

“What’s taking you so long, old man?”

“Nothing,” Armie lies. “Here we go.”

He squeezes a large dollop of the sunscreen onto his palm and presses his hand firmly against Timmy’s shoulder blade. Firm strokes to get the job done quickly and professionally.

Still, when he’s massaging the last drops onto Timmy’s lower back, Timmy sighs, pleased. “Ah, that feels good. I haven’t had a massage in ages.”

“This wasn’t a massage, I was just putting sunscreen on you,” Armie says quickly, defensively, as if he’s been caught.

“Yeah, I know. But still.”

Armie wants to ask if the girl regularly seen on magazine covers and red carpet photos with Timmy isn’t giving him enough massages. Hard to do that over the phone, probably.

Timmy lays himself down on the sun lounger, closing his eyes behind the sunglasses. “So what was the question again?”

“What question?”

“The last one from Luca’s list that we left off on in the morning?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Armie feels like morning was ages ago and checks the question from his phone. “_If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?_”

“Considering I’m thirty-one, it’s a little late for either of those now, isn’t it.”

“Your body looks exactly like it did when you were twenty-one, come on.”

Timmy turns his head, takes a glance at Armie.

Armie pretends not to notice and continues: “Personally, I think you would need to know how your next sixty years would turn out. For example, whether you were going to get Alzheimer’s or not.”

“Right. So let’s say I don’t get it and I would remember everything. But would it then mean that my mind would remain in the same state it was when I was thirty? Because, man, that doesn’t sound like a good deal. I would still like to learn, and improve myself, and—you know. Get fewer of those stupid ideas that I used to get. Although, some of those I would actually like to forget, now that I think about it.” Timmy hums. “Can I be selective in what to learn and what to forget?”

“I don’t think that was an option.”

“I mean, even if I can’t forget, I just hope that other people won’t remember my most embarrassing moments when I’m ninety. It’s enough that I’m haunted by them myself.”

“Like what?”

Timmy rolls onto his side, watches Armie for a while over the rim of his sunglasses and then turns to lay on his back again. The sunglasses return to shade his eyes. “Never mind.”

“No, tell me.”

Timmy sighs. “You already know.”

“Know what?”

“Well, Paris is definitely in the top three. Ring any bells?”

Armie freezes. He should’ve expected this. “What about Paris?”

“Come on. Of all the stupid things I’ve done, let’s not pretend you don’t remember Paris,” Timmy says. ”Because of the absinthe, it would make more sense if I didn’t remember it myself, but, unfortunately I do.”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Armie responds gingerly.

“That’s not what you said to me then.”

“I never said it was stupid. I only said that we shouldn’t. There’s a difference.”

“Anyway, that’s one thing I wish I hadn’t done and wish I could forget. So maybe that’s my answer: I would like to retain the body and let my mind change and forget and learn? Although it sounds a little vain, wanting to keep the body. But when you think about it like that, from the perspective of the mind…”

Timmy babbles on, but Armie is only half-listening. His thoughts have flown back to that late night in a Parisian hotel, to the hallway outside Timmy’s hotel room and the place where they had first stopped pretending.

It had been the back end of their press tour for the film, and the local distributor people had procured a bottle of absinthe after their dinner near Place Vendôme. Apart from Luca who had retired to bed early, they had all partaken, spoons and sugar cubes and all, but the slender Timmy hadn’t handled his share as smoothly as the rest of their group. And so at the end of the night, Armie had promised to the others that he would make sure Timmy would get to his room safely. He had had his arms around the kid the whole way back, and Timmy had only seemed pleased by the turn the evening had taken. He would feel different come morning, Armie had thought.

“Armie,” Timmy had said, drunkenly leaning on the door of his hotel room with the whole length and weight of his body.

Armie had held him up by his arms and asked patiently: “Yes?”

“Would you come inside?”

“Yes, I will help you in.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Timmy had whispered, suddenly seeming aware of the late hour and the fact that they shouldn’t bother the sleeping patrons of the hotel. “Will you come in. And be with me?”

“Be with you?”

“You know what I mean. I know you want to. And I want you to.”

Armie had smiled, tried to make light of it. “I don’t think you know what you’re saying, Timmy Tim.”

“Please.”

Armie had ignored him, robustly reached into Timmy’s pocket to pluck out his key card and opened the door.

Timmy had wandered inside. “Close the door.”

Armie had obliged him; he wasn’t going to leave until Timmy was in bed, sleeping. He had sat down, watched Timmy amble around the room with zero intention of going to bed.

“Okay, come here and let’s get you ready for sleep.”

Timmy had turned around, the Parisian streets casting a faint stripe of light through the window and creating a halo around his curls.

“I mean it. I know you have her, waiting in your room,” Timmy had waved around aimlessly with his arm, “—but she gets to have you whenever she wants. My days, my chances, are getting fewer and fewer every day.”

“Timmy—”

He had looked like he was performing a soliloquy on stage, meant to tug the heartstrings of his audience. “I see the way you look at me, you don’t think I’ve noticed? You say I’m easy to read, but you’re not exactly made of stone yourself either.”

Armie had sighed. He had felt partially responsible; he had enjoyed the flirting that they had played up to the press, and Timmy’s notion that some of it was real hadn’t been as far-fetched as Armie would’ve liked to claim. Still, nothing had happened between them nor was going to happen. Armie was married and even if he hadn’t been, he couldn’t just fall for a co-star who was still practically a boy, now, could he?

“It’s—“ Armie had stopped because the fact had been that he had had no idea what to say.

While he had tried to find the words to express the feelings he didn’t want to have, let alone give away, Timmy had stridden across the room, pushed his way to stand between Armie’s knees and placed his hands along Armie’s jaw.

“We don’t have to tell anyone. You can go back to her right after.”

Armie had looked up at him, lips parted, eyes pleading. “Timmy.”

Why was it so hard to just say no? No, I don’t want this; no, this is not what’s going on between us; no, you have made it all up in your head. Maybe because none of those denials would’ve been accurate.

“Please? You’re insufferable at times, yes,” Timmy had continued and shaken Armie a little by the shoulders. “But you make me feel things, you know? Just—feel. I’ve never felt this much around anyone before. It’s almost suffocating me sometimes. You can’t be totally oblivious to that either and—please.”

Timmy had pressed his forehead against Armie’s, his face right there, his mouth right there, all Armie would have needed to do was to reach up an inch.

Instead, he had done the right thing.

Timmy had been drunk out of his mind, so none of the other stuff had mattered. And thus, he had covered Timmy’s hands with his own, detached them from his neck and gotten up.

“We can’t. We just can’t.”

He had put his arms around Timmy and Timmy had slumped against his chest, defeated, and let himself be guided onto the bed and Armie had taken off his jacket, pulled off his shoes, and tucked him in.

“I usually sleep naked,” Timmy had tried, but Armie had been firm.

“We’re making an exception now.”

Timmy had watched from the bed, with only his head showing above the duvet, as Armie had rummaged around the room for painkillers, found some in Timmy’s washbag and left two on his nightstand along with a glass of water.

“Take these in the morning. I’ll see you at breakfast.”

Armie had wished him goodnight with one last touch on his hair, thumb swiping his temple.

As he had left the room, Armie had hoped the absinthe would be merciful, swiping Timmy’s memory clean of everything that had happened, returning things to normal between them.

That hadn’t happened. In the morning, a very pale and fidgety Timmy had appeared in the breakfast room of the hotel, the others teasing him about his first encounter with the green fairy and Timmy’s eyes flitting everywhere but at Armie. He had known because he had kept watching Timmy, trying to see how much he remembered, how things stood between them.

“Stop looking at me,” Timmy had finally whispered when the others had left the table to get a second round of pain au chocolat.

“Sorry, I just—”

“I remember, if that’s what you’re wondering. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

“I—“

“And I’m sorry, I was an idiot. It’s embarrassing, so could you just forget I ever said anything and stop looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” Armie had finally managed.

“Like I’m the most pathetic, needy—“

“I don’t think you’re either of those things,” Armie had interrupted.

“Well, whatever it is, just stop.”

Armie had wanted to tell him that he was sorry too; that if Timmy hadn’t been so drunk that Armie couldn’t trust anything that was coming out of his mouth—although didn’t the drunk more often speak the truth about their heart than come up with lies? He had wanted to say that if Timmy hadn’t been in such a shape that doing anything with him would have felt like taking advantage, if Timmy had been stark sober and said the same things and Armie had listened to him for a moment longer, he never would’ve left the room and this morning he would’ve woken up in his bed.

But it hadn’t been wise to tell Timmy any of these things.

And therefore, Armie had stopped looking at him, pretended everything was normal, and that had been that. Slowly, things had returned to where they had been, they were friends and colleagues and co-stars and brothers and he was prouder of Timmy than he had ever been of anyone else and Timmy would never know how close Armie had been to succumbing, right then and there, to the one thing he wasn’t allowed to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ends on a sad note but I promise: this story won't.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Timmy works to keep his eyes on the garment._

On the morning of Day 3, the ship is sailing somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean and Armie is in the middle of getting dressed, when there’s a knock on the door.

Maybe it’s the maid, Armie thinks. He could actually use some fresh towels. He reaches over to unlock the door with one hand before returning to pulling up his jeans in front of the mirror.

“Yes, come in, it’s open!”

Timmy barges in. “Hey, I thought I’d check if you had already gone for—“

He stops at the threshold.

Armie’s barefoot, in jeans that are a tad tighter than he normally wears, his fingers working on the buckle of his belt. There’s no shirt in sight, and Timmy’s eyes make an instant note of that fact.

“Um, I can go—“ Timmy turns away, points at the door, grasps at words.

Armie notices his flustering and fights back the smile that’s about to erupt. He succeeds and instead, says in the most relaxed, nonchalant voice he can come up with: “No, stay, I’m almost ready.”

Timmy closes the door behind him, perches himself on the armrest of the couch and says, voice squeaking at the end: “Okay.”

Armie had already picked out a shirt earlier, but he now ignores the one he had spread on his bed and bends over to fish for another one from the bottom shelf of the tiny closet in his cabin. It takes a while, a long while, especially since he deliberately rejects the first two, peeking back at Timmy in the middle of the search.

“Sorry it’s taking so long, I have a specific shirt in mind that I wanted to wear, but I can’t seem to find it.”

Timmy’s gaze shoots up to Armie’s eyes from whichever part of his body it had been focused on, but he’s too slow and Armie catches him.

It doesn’t make Armie unhappy. Surprised, but definitely not unhappy.

He finally picks out a plain white t-shirt and walks back to Timmy. 

“Would this work, Mr ‘I Style All My Own Red-Carpet Looks’?” He holds the shirt up and Timmy works to keep his eyes on the garment.

“Yes, a white shirt, always a classic choice, especially with…those jeans.” He glances at the tight dark jeans that Armie knows are maybe too snug on the hips, but the stylist at his latest photo shoot had insisted that they looked good on him. And since he knew that he would need to start looking presentable for other people again in the near future, he had agreed to keep them. He sends a silent thank you to the pushy woman now.

After Timmy’s approval, Armie puts the shirt on, looks in the mirror, pats Timmy on the shoulder. “Thanks, buddy.”

Timmy straightens his back at the touch and after the previous afternoon’s sunscreen session Armie is pleased to see that he’s not the only one still affected by—by what, exactly? The other’s proximity?

Whatever it is, Armie finds himself in a significantly better mood now than he was the morning before. He grabs his phone and slips on his shoes.

“Okay, I’m ready now. Let’s go.”

They leave for breakfast and when they meet a group of other passengers in the elevator, Armie can’t help but flash the retirees a smile. He even feels compelled to wish the quickly smitten ladies a melodic good morning, which earns him a curious look from Timmy.

They land at the cafeteria in the middle of the busiest breakfast hour, so there’s lots of foot traffic and they have to wait in line for the buffet, but Armie doesn’t mind because Timmy stands close to him in the crowd smelling like shampoo right under his nose, and even if Timmy will force him to work on those questions again, at least the day has gotten a pretty nice start.

After breakfast, they hit the blistering heat of the sundeck again and Timmy manages to get Armie to answer a few more questions.

“We’re already ahead of the schedule, man. Think about it like this: the sooner we’re done, the sooner we’ll have free time.”

And so Armie agrees to answer Question #7, which is about how he thinks he is going to die, and for Question #8, Timmy lists three things they have in common.

“Both of us are sweating,” he says, eyes traveling down the glistening drops on Armie’s chest, which makes Armie self-conscious, “—both of us want another drink, and we both are enjoying spending time together.”

The last observation is offered tentatively, and a flush of relief goes over his face when Armie concurs: “Yes, I’ll admit, this is nice. Despite the interrogation.”

They get a few more questions checked off the list, until one finally stumps Armie and he declares he’s done for the day.

“Let’s think about that tomorrow and concentrate on the fact that we are on a floating resort with a string of bars we haven’t been to yet.”

In the evening, there’s a ballroom theme to the ship’s dinner, and dancing after. The theme requires everyone to dress up and the elderly Danish sisters can barely stay in their seats when Armie and Timmy show up at the table, dressed to the nines in slim dark suits, Timmy with a subtle glittering pattern on his, because when has he ever worn anything conventional?

Over the years, Armie has seen him in pictures from premieres and award shows, and he’s seemed more and more comfortable in his skin every time. Yet, tonight, even without the high stakes of a press line or an award nomination, he’s been fidgety ever since they met up for pre-dinner drinks at the bar on the Panorama deck.

Armie had ordered for them both, had a suave conversation with the bartender as Timmy looked on, and they had enjoyed their liquid courage leaning on the mahogany bar. At Timmy’s suggestion, they had ordered another round of drinks before they had felt ready to enter the ballroom and face another round of questions from their dinner companions. The second drink had relaxed Timmy, too, even though it hadn’t completely erased his restlessness.

Armie had wondered what that was about as they walked over to their table, but he wasn’t able to dwell on it because he needed to be alert for Cindy from Ohio and the two nosy Danish pigeons. Cindy’s husband, Rich, has turned out to be the quiet type, but since the first evening, the three ladies have been determined to find out what has gotten two men, old but estranged friends by their own account, embark on a cruise now. Luckily, the ladies haven’t gotten much below the surface with their enquiries yet, because Armie isn’t quite sure himself what they would find. Are they old friends? Old colleagues that life has torn apart? That’s what they tell Cindy, when she asks what had gotten between them.

“Life,” Armie says with a mock breeziness and takes a big gulp of his dinner wine.

Armie’s happy that Timmy has wordlessly agreed not to divulge anything, and instead, distract whenever possible when the ladies try to pry further. It’s an easy task for Timmy, as the ladies treat him like a beloved grandson and have tonight cooed over the sleek, beguiling curls that have replaced Timmy’s messy hair from the first evening.

Still, when the questions threaten to make a comeback after dessert, Armie has to take out the big guns: befitting the ballroom theme, he asks one of the Danish sisters to dance. She’s thrilled and can’t get up from her seat fast enough, shoving her purse to her sister to be taken care of.

From the distraction perspective, it proves a genius move, but it doesn’t take long for Armie to notice what he’s done.

When the word spreads across the ballroom that there’s a dapper dancer present who still has all of his own teeth and hair, the ladies from their own table are far from the only ones tapping him on the shoulder, wanting their turn on the dancefloor, and Armie quickly ends up cursing his supposedly brilliant idea.

While Armie finds himself stuck, entertaining the shipful of ladies by leading one after another to the dancefloor like a gentleman from the fifties, Timmy sits back and gleefully pours himself another glass of wine. His own boyish looks make him look too young for the ladies’ advances and Armie is in the middle of dipping the current lady of a certain age in his arms—careful not to break any joints—when he notices Timmy giggling to himself at the table, apparently deciding that he needs evidence of all of this for later. Armie tries to glare at him sternly over the woman’s shoulder as Timmy takes out his phone and starts taking pictures of the dancefloor, but Timmy resolutely ignores him and keeps clicking away.

The ladies finally have mercy on Armie, and he and Timmy make an escape from the ballroom. Timmy teases him and laughs the whole way back to their cabins.

Armie pushes him into the elevator. “Stop it! You are on thin ice, kid.”

Timmy does an exaggerated twirl in the small elevator, tripping over his feet and almost hitting all the buttons at once. “Come on, those grandmas had the night of their lives!”

Armie shakes his head, biting on a hint of a smile as he pushes the button for the twelfth floor. He tucks his hands into his pockets and relaxes against the mirrored wall. “Oh, shut up.”

“Who knew you were such a good dancer! Those period films really paid off,” Timmy says, leaning against the opposite wall, looking him up and down.

“You’re just jealous they didn’t dance with you,” Armie taunts back and jokes: “Or that you didn’t get to dance with me yourself.”

Armie feels carefree for the first time in a long time and the joke comes out naturally and he remembers how much fun they can have when it’s just them. No cameras, no publicists, no interviewers with their microphones. No one from their teams, no friends or family, just them.

So he doesn’t think anything of the joke, because that’s all it is.

But Timmy’s eyes fly to the marble floor and there’s a nervous effort at something resembling a laugh before the elevator pings for the twelfth floor.

They stop at Timmy’s door, both shifting their weight from one foot to the other in their suits as if they’ve come to the end of an awkward prom date. Timmy fiddles with the key card he’s pulled out of his pocket.

“So.”

“So.”

Timmy’s fingers reach over to Armie’s shoulder and Armie watches them touch the dull matte shine of his jacket, scratch the fabric.

“You had…” Timmy says. “Food or something there.”

“Oh.”

“So.”

“See you in the morning again?”

“Yup.”

The next couple of days go by in a weird state of truce but despite the hours on the sundeck, Armie is having a hard time to fully relax. He keeps playing the question game to keep Timmy and Luca happy, but he’s careful not to divulge anything that he shouldn’t. At one point, he starts to briefly wonder whether he’s doing it wrong, but the alternative would be to be brutally honest about everything that has been on his mind since the ship departed from Barcelona, about both old memories and new inklings, and that doesn’t seem like a good idea, either.

He thinks he’s an expert at keeping up the façade until the evening of Day 5, when they are sitting in front of a fake palm at the bar on the Sunset deck and Timmy starts to read: “_Question #14: Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it_?”

Armie adjusts his sunglasses. So many questions on this ship, from the ladies at the dinner table every evening and from Timmy all day long. And all of the questions seem to mock him.

He thinks for a while and makes up a sensible-sounding answer about certain roles that he would have interest in pursuing if someone ever decided to remake those films. The officer in _The Night Porter_, or maybe even something Shakespearean.

Timmy looks at him, doesn’t say anything.

“What?” Armie has to finally prod.

“That’s not your real answer.”

“What do you mean? Of course it’s my real answer.”

“I know you, remember? That’s not your real answer. But whatever, I’m going to let that go, or we’ll be here until the apocalypse or something. You ask the next one.”

“Nah, you keep asking.”

“That’s not how this works, we’re supposed to—“

“Yeah, yeah. Who’s going to know if we break the rules? Ask, Sweet Tea.”

Timmy bites his lip in order not to smile, but Armie sees that the ancient memory of a pet name he used only when he wanted to tease Timmy does its job. Score.

Timmy clears his throat, tries to appear unaffected. “_Question #15_. _What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?_”

Armie opens his mouth but Timmy interrupts him before he can get any words out.

“Can I just say something first? I’m glad you finally got the recognition you’ve always deserved.” He leans forward over the table and smiles.

Armie shrugs. He’s not good at accepting compliments, especially when the person means it. Timmy always did. Does.

“They didn’t want me to do that film, you know,” Armie says and takes another sip of his whiskey. It burns in his throat, offering a great distraction. “Not high enough in profile.”

“Why did you do it, then?”

“You don’t know?”

“I think I do, but I wanted to hear it from you.”

“_This script would let you be vulnerable. You would get to show everyone what I see all the time.”_

Timmy is moved that Armie remembers his exact words all these years later.

The funding for the Henry James film, widely acclaimed and awarded as Armie’s best work, had fallen through several times and the project had taken years and years to come together, but Armie had first received the script when Timmy had been visiting him a lifetime ago. He had read it in Armie’s backyard and Armie still remembers the moment Timmy had stood in front of him, shading his eyes from the Californian sun and told Armie his positive verdict on the script. He had insisted that Armie should do the film.

Timmy now leans back in his deck chair, picks on the cocktail napkin. “You remember how you replied?”

“No.”

“You said, _wouldn’t we like to keep it that way?”_

The sun is beginning to set behind them and Armie knows that without Luca, they never would’ve arrived at the moment of seeing things in each other that no one else did. Not for the first time, but not for this second time, either.

Later on, Armie doesn’t remember who said it first. Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter because the matching reply comes immediately.

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too.”

Timmy fidgets in his chair. “Maybe this cruise wasn’t Luca’s worst idea,” he then says.

“Maybe,” Armie admits.

“Maybe this was a brilliant idea.”

“Don’t push it,” Armie warns but as he raises his glass to his lips, he smiles.

The sunglasses hide their eyes and they casually decide to check off a few more questions from the list until their glasses are empty, but when they part at the doors of their cabins, the mood has inevitably shifted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (One little _Notting Hill_ inspired Easter Egg may have slipped into this chapter.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“I need a place to stay.”_

On Day 6, Armie’s planning to dive into Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest novel in the gentle morning sunlight of his balcony, when Timmy shows up at his door with a backpack and an armful of clothes.

“I—I need a place to stay,” Timmy says, sounding as confused as he looks.

“What? What happened to your cabin?”

“They knocked on the door, the manager or something, and told me there’s a risk of water damage in my bathroom. Apparently someone right above me had passed out drunk in their shower and flooded the place.”

“But can’t they just give you a new room?”

“They are working on it, I guess. But can I stay with you until they do? I don’t know where to go and the maintenance guy told me to get my stuff out of the way.”

“Um, of course. Make yourself at home.”

Armie moves to the side and lets Timmy waltz in with his belongings. He drops his clothes into one pile on the floor and his backpack next to them, but as the day wears on, the items somehow start to drift.

The thing is, Armie likes his surroundings neat and in order. He has kept his cabin immaculate, so he can’t understand how Timmy’s clothes, notebooks, and collection of headphones are able to so quickly take over Armie’s room even though his new roommate has only been there for an hour or two. Timmy’s things start to emerge at unexpected places and Armie tries to restore order where he can by returning the escaped pieces to the original pile in the corner, but eventually he gives up when Timmy’s belongings prove more powerful than him.

Granted, maintaining order might be easier if they left the room, but somehow they end up staying in all day, Armie lying on the bed, flipping the channels on the tv back and forth while Timmy reads on the couch or writes in his journal.

The programming on the ship’s channels is horrible: one Italian game show after another with their balding, overly tanned hosts and scantily clad, overly made up prize girls. After you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, and so watching Timmy starts to hold Armie’s interest more.

The kid’s hunched over his notebook, scribbling against one knee while the other leg dangles over the edge of the couch. The pen dashes across the page in familiar staccato and Armie remembers the times he’d seen Timmy write during the downtime of their press tour. It had been his way of processing the whirlwind of it all, even though he had claimed it had been mostly to preserve the memories. But it had been a lot, the level of attention so new to him, to both of them, really, and it was a perfect way to try and make sense of what was going on. Armie had a feeling that there’d been paragraphs about the two of them in there as well. Everything had been so intertwined.

As Timmy’s pen keeps swooshing against the paper, Armie wonders what he’s writing about these days. He doesn’t want to interrupt Timmy, not intentionally. Yet, he’s bored and Armie can’t believe he’s about to do this but: “Hey, how about one of those questions?”

Timmy looks up from his journal, pen stopping in mid-air.

“Oh.” He’s surprised by the suggestion, and Armie can’t blame him. “Um, sure. Just let me…”

He jots down a few more words and Armie would kill to know what they were about, but he doesn’t ask. Instead, when Timmy’s ready, he asks Question #16.

_“What do you value in a friendship?”_

“Acceptance. Of who you are. Not needing to change yourself.”

“That was a fast response.”

“It’s just something that’s been on my mind a lot lately.”

“Everything okay with you and your friends?”

“With me and them, yes, but they’re not—fans of her, exactly.”

“Really?“

“Yeah. And they’ve made it clear. Not to her face, of course, but to me. But it’s pretty obvious to her, too. They never come over if she’s visiting.”

Armie decides to bite the bullet. “What’s the deal with the two of you anyway? I see the pictures of you with her, but you haven’t really talked about her.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Timmy shrugs. “It’s not that serious. It’s more like—it’s company. It could become something, maybe, if there was more time. But I’m busy, she’s busy.”

Armie squints. “I’ve never met her so I can only speak for myself, but do you really think a spark will appear later if it hasn’t already?”

“Have you been talking to Luca?”

“Luca? About this? No. Why?”

“Because that’s exactly what he said when he called me a while ago. Anyway, I guess I’m hoping it would turn into something? And me dating her keeps Lena and the rest of my team happy, so.”

“Where is she now?”

“In New York, I think.”

“Can I meet her if she comes to visit when we shoot?”

“Sure. Although—no, never mind.”

“No, what?”

Timmy sighs. “She might get weird about it.”

“About meeting me? Why?” Armie doesn’t understand.

“She’s gotten it into her head that she’s jealous of you.”

“Jealous? About what?”

Timmy looks embarrassed. “About me. What you and I had.” Armie’s eyes widen so Timmy rushes to assure him: “Not that I’ve told her anything. But people say things and she thinks she’s figured it out. Anyway, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of me coming here with you.”

“But she has no reason to be worried about anything now. Right?”

“Right.” Timmy says it the way one tells a child that they aren’t even going to feel the prick. Confidently, looking like he believes it himself, too.

Armie doesn’t know what to say anymore so he gets up to use the bathroom and when he gets back, there’s a pen rolling on the floor. It definitely wasn’t there when he left. He sighs and picks it up, places it in the pile.

He takes a look at Timmy who’s returned to writing on the couch, apparently with a different pen, and then glances at the bed. It’s only three in the afternoon, so it would probably be too early to start thinking about, let alone discussing, sleeping arrangements. Yes, definitely too early.

In the early evening, there’s still no word about a new room from the guest manager, so Armie brings it up.

“So,” he coughs, “I was thinking about the—bed. I mean, for sleep. How we would sleep. If you stay here.” He wants to kick himself. “That couch doesn’t look very comfortable, so if you want, you can—“

Timmy interrupts him, tests the seat cushion with his hand. “But I think this pulls out?”

“It does?”

“At least I think it does.”

They both bend down to inspect the mechanism at the bottom and Timmy’s right, it’s a pull-out couch.

“Okay, that solves it then,” Armie says, weirdly disappointed.

“Wait, were you going to suggest that we both sleep in your bed?”

Armie shrugs, tries to look like he doesn’t care either way and curses the flush that he can feel rising on his cheeks under Timmy’s curious gaze. “I mean, if you wanted to.”

Timmy’s speech speeds up. “Because even if this pulls out, it’s probably meant for, like, kids, if they have families in these rooms. For toddlers and teens. Not for 31-year-old men. I’m sure it could carry my weight, but it’s not, like, designed for adults.”

“Oh, totally. So would you rather—?”

“I mean, if you don’t mind—“

“And we can build a pillow fort between us if you’re worried that—“

“Worried about what?”

“That I would—“ Timmy looks at Armie wide-eyed, so he just shakes his head. “Nothing, I guess.”

“So that’s settled then?”

Armie nods, and they shake hands as if they’ve just made the most peculiar business deal.

“That’s settled. By the way, do you still sleep naked?” Armie jokes awkwardly.

“I can make an exception for you,” Timmy grins.

“Exception to sleeping naked or to not sleeping naked?”

Timmy raises his brows. “You’ll find out.”

Armie laughs, but the nature of any of his potential replies approaches dangerous territory—flirting—and he needs to get himself out of there, fast. He pulls out his phone, and just this once, thanks Luca for the list of questions. They just need to stick to the script and to the designated topics of discussion and things will be fine.

He flops onto the bed and moves one gently worn sock of Timmy’s from his pillow—how did that even get there?—before shooting Question #18 at Timmy.

“_What is your most terrible memory_?”

Timmy squints, thinks, scrunches his nose. “Is it bad if I say some auditions? No, that’s stupid. I should have more terrible memories, right? But there were some, when I was just starting out, that I totally blew and that made me feel completely worthless. It’s been more than ten years but I still sometimes think about them. You know how you sometimes wake up at night, and can’t sleep and all the things you can think about are the most embarrassing ones?”

“And,“ he continues, “—there’s this thing that I’m now sort of being considered for, but I don’t know if I have what it takes and even if I decide to do it, I’m terrified of eventually blowing it like those auditions.“

“What role is it?”

“It should be someone who’s charismatic and stunning and I just—“

“But you’re both of those things.”

“What?”

“You can hold anyone’s attention and you’re, obviously, gorgeous.”

Timmy’s earlier, rambling tone gets soft. “I am?”

“Oh, come on,” Armie says and flushes crimson. “You know you are. You hear it all the time.”

“Yeah, but it’s different when—“

Timmy’s interrupted by a text message. He reaches for his phone and reads. “It’s the guest manager. They’ve found me a new cabin on the 13th floor.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

In the morning, Timmy had been promised a new room as soon as possible, but even if it took all day, it still feels too sudden now.

“So I think I’ll just go up there then?” Timmy asks, uncertain.

“I guess so?”

Timmy gets up, starts gathering his things. It was only supposed to be a temporary arrangement to begin with, and yet, they both look a little lost.

“So 13th floor, huh? Moving on up,” Armie tries to lighten the mood but only gets a forced smile from Timmy.

Armie helps Timmy move all his luggage, clothes, journals, and headphones to his new room, and after dinner, when Armie returns to his own cabin, it’s all clean and neat again. Even though he wouldn’t admit it to a soul, he finds himself missing the mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone sharing Armie’s disappointment in the sleepover plans going bust? Let's hope he'll get a rain check or something...


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Dress code: Beachy, Hawaiian style._

On Day 7, the ship’s loud-speakers start playing laidback ukulele music at eight in the morning. The daily bulletins that are delivered to the cabins advertise a Hawaiian night in the ballroom_. Dress code: Beachy, Hawaiian style._

“Awesome,” says Timmy, when Armie shows up at his new cabin on the 13th floor in the morning and pushes the leaflet into Timmy’s face on his way in.

“Horrible,” Armie retorts and slumps onto the only chair that isn’t covered in clothes. “Corny. Can you imagine? The old geezers drunk on their tropical cocktails? The grandmas decked out in leis that they’ll probably have everyone wear?”

“Maybe you can take them hula dancing this time,” Timmy suggests and quickly has to duck to avoid a balled-up shirt that flies towards him.

Armie is right. When the evening comes, the ship’s attendants patrol the hallways handing out fake leis and practically force one on everyone at the ballroom entrance at the latest. Armie rolls his eyes as the Julie McCoy at the hostess desk insists on calling their dining table their hut, and the backdrop in the ballroom shows a sunset behind coconut trees and volcanoes. Didn’t he say it was going to be corny? Waiters circulate the room, serving drinks from halved pineapples while the same ukulele music from the morning blasts around them, only louder.

Timmy is loving it and grabs two leis from Julie McCoy, excited.

“Ooh, look at these! So kitschy!”

Armie groans as Timmy fits one of the leis, the bright pink one, around his neck and makes him pose for a picture. He’s been a good sport about the questions lately and they’ve enjoyed spending time together, even approaching the old times occasionally, but he’s not above being grumpy about forced make-believe fun with strangers.

“I need a drink,” he announces as soon as they enter the dining room.

Adhering to the dress code, Timmy has shown up in an oversized silky button-up shirt with giant pink and green hibiscuses on it. Armie is in a t-shirt and jeans and Timmy scolds him.

“You know that you’re not really showing any team spirit, right?”

Armie pulls at the lei; it itches in the back.

“My t-shirt’s green. The color of palm trees and whatnot,” he defends himself and takes a long sip of his drink which he’s grabbed from one of the waiters’ trays and which definitely has a kick to it. Tequila, maybe? Good, it looks like he’ll need it. “Besides, where did you even get that shirt? There’s no way you packed for the possibility of a Hawaiian night.”

Timmy looks sheepish. “It’s just one of my shirts. It happened to fit the theme.”

“One of your…” Armie reaches over to Timmy, pulls at the shirt at the back of his neck to check the label and raises his brow. “Fendi. Should’ve known. Only you would show up on a boat with a suitcase full of designer clothes.”

“In my defense, this is from their resort collection!” Timmy argues and adds: “Luca hooked me up.”

The rest of the evening follows the same pattern. Timmy relishes the clichés and calls it irony; Armie hates everything except the strong drinks in the pineapple halves. Timmy doesn’t reject those, either, and after imbibing enough of them, his eyes light up when the cruise director announces a hula dancing contest.

Armie makes it clear on the spot that he’s out of the dancing game tonight, but Timmy looks sly. “Should I sign up?”

“Totally,” Armie deadpans. “Do you know how to do it?”

“No, but how hard can it be? They must have an instructor or something.”

They don’t.

As the music starts, a jury headed by the ship’s entertainment director enters the stage, followed by the contestants in a crossfire of colored spotlights and amped-up music. There are five other passengers in addition to Timmy: a young Russian girl, and a group of four middle-aged British women that are clearly there only because of the strong cocktails they’ve enjoyed. As the only male contestant, Timmy gets the loudest applause at the introductions and takes a giggly bow.

They proceed to do two rounds of dancing, one contestant at a time in the limelight and each performance more ridiculous than the one before, except for the Russian girl, who seems to sort of know what she’s doing. Timmy’s moves have nothing to do with hula dance moves but he puts his hips into it and, in the spirit of the evening, it’s the thought that counts, so the crowd goes wild. Armie watches him, keen, and remembers nights that have nothing in common with this one except for the fact that Timmy is fully in his element and Armie can’t take his eyes off of him.

When the jury announces its verdict, Timmy comes in second, to the loud disappointment of the crowd. Turns out that the Russian girl is a professional dancer trained in the Bolshoi Ballet Academy and apparently ballet skills are transferable enough to hula dancing in the jury’s eyes.

Timmy couldn’t care less and returns to the table bursting with adrenaline, no less giddy than he had been on stage.

“That was fun! Did you see that? I got second place.” Eyes glittering, he plants his golden runner-up trophy on the table and slides onto his chair. Then adds, contemplative: “I think I’m a little bit drunk.”

“I’m not drunk enough,” Armie counters and reaches to pick up another drink from the tray of the waiter passing them by, but Timmy’s joy has begun to catch on to him and he’s secretly starting to enjoy the evening.

“These are ridiculous,” he comments on the cocktail with a purple umbrella sticking out of it, but sucks on the green straw with unbridled enthusiasm. “But deceptively tasty.”

“Clearly,” Timmy grins and makes Armie grab yet another one for him, too.

There’s definitely something in the drinks because their whole table stays in the ballroom well past midnight, the Danish sisters included, and one of them now has fake hibiscus flowers stuck into the white pouf of her hair. Rich, the Midwestern husband has started talking for once and regales their table with his craziest adventures of the time when he was in the Navy.

Armie finds himself relaxing as the usually proper mood of the room has given way to something more forgiving, and he drapes his arm on the back of Timmy’s chair as he listens to Rich’s tales.

The night wears on, and Timmy leans the back of his head on Armie’s arm at times. He has long ago lost track of how many pineapple halves he’s consumed unlike Armie, who has saved all of his paper umbrellas and is trying to arrange them in a neat row to count them, but his efforts are slowed down by Timmy who keeps stealing them to fiddle with them. Armie wrings them back from his hands, and as they playfight in their tequila-infused cloud, they don’t notice Cindy and the Danish ladies watching them. The women exchange knowing smiles.

Armie and Timmy are among the last Hawaiian partiers; they don’t leave the ballroom until the ship runs out of the evening’s special cocktails and the waiters start to close the place down. They stumble into the elevator and when it, after a smooth ascent, soon announces the arrival at Armie’s floor, Timmy sighs, the lei still around his neck: “I’m too tired to go up to my room. It’s so far.”

Armie shakes his head but laughs. “It’s the next floor,” he reminds Timmy and tries to move him to the side, away from the elevator doors that will soon open.

Timmy doesn’t budge. “I know, but I’m too tired to go up there.”

“All you need to do is press the button for the 13th floor. That one. Look?”

Armie even points out the button for him but Timmy brushes him off. “Stop bugging me, I’m drunk.”

Instead, he slips out of the elevator as soon as the door slides open at the 12th floor and sooner than Armie can stop him. “Can I stay with you? Just for a bit?”

Armie kicks his shoes off and throws himself on the bed in his cabin. Timmy folds onto the floor across from the bed, hugging his knees.

Armie stares at the ceiling, which, weirdly enough, isn’t spinning.

“The ceiling is very still.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Armie wonders if the buzz he’s been feeling isn’t all from the tequila after all.

“How about we do a couple of those questions? It could be interesting. We’re too drunk to lie,” Timmy suggests.

“I’m never too drunk to lie.”

“Yes, you are. Like right now.” Timmy shuffles on the floor to pull out his phone. “Here we go. Question #27.”

“We’re in the back nine, gentlemen! Back nine!” Armie fist pumps the air.

Timmy laughs. “Yes. So. #27. _If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him to know._”

“See, that’s totally futile,” Armie stretches his neck on the bed to take a look at Timmy on the floor. “You already know everything.”

“Like what?”

“Like everything-everything. About me.”

Timmy gets up, goes to sit on the bed. He tries to pull his legs under him but topples over to lie next to Armie.

“I do?”

Armie moves to make room for him and smiles, resigned. “Afraid so.” He adds something, muttering as he turns onto his side, to face Timmy.

“What was that?”

“More so than anyone else,” Armie repeats more clearly after he’s settled in, but right away feels an urge to turn back to lie on his back because of the way Timmy is looking at him.

The look doesn’t last long and Timmy slaps him on the chest.

“Ouch! What was that for?”

“Because you don’t get to just say things like that.”

“Too drunk to lie, remember?”

“But what am I supposed to do with that?”

“You don’t have to do anything with it. It’s not like you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t.”

“Stop pretending. That night at the Beverly Hilton?”

It’s the first time either of them has mentioned it out loud and Timmy looks like he stops breathing.

Armie continues: “You couldn’t have missed it then. How much you mean to me. Meant to me.” A pause. “Mean to me.”

“That was…physical.” Timmy blushes. “And nothing happened after she showed up. Nothing but eight years of silence.”

“It wasn’t what I would have wanted.”

“Right.” Timmy rolls over to his back, talks to the ceiling. “I’m not sure doing these questions drunk was such a good idea.”

“Too much truth for you?”

“It’s just… What am I supposed to do with all that, now? A million years later?”

Armie shrugs and Timmy continues: “You haven’t tried to keep in touch, not even as friends, so why are you now… I just don’t get it.”

Armie’s hand lands softly on Timmy’s shoulder. His fingertips snake to graze Timmy’s neck.

“Are you complaining?”

Timmy leans into the touch and doesn’t answer.

Ten minutes later, Armie has no idea what they are doing. They lie on the bed, Timmy nudging against him briefly, then rolling back to his own side of the bed again. Only half of what they discuss makes any sense to either of them, and Armie wants to ask if the magazine cover girl would be okay with Timmy being here, with him, like this, but that’s also the last thing he wants to ask.

Instead, he wants Timmy to be too tired to ever go back to his own room and instead, keep crowding the bed in Armie’s. His presence is at once calming and exhilarating and at times Armie needs to turn away just to be able to keep his thoughts straight.

He sometimes has nightly thoughts that disappear in the stark, sensible light of day. Are his thoughts right now, the fleeting touches he’s placed on Timmy’s shoulder, cheek, hip, just more of those same desires? If he just waits it out, will reason and sound mind return to him? But he hasn’t figured it out yet and now he has no more time to, because Timmy has again shuffled to lean against Armie’s back and nuzzles his shoulder from behind.

“Ask me what I was most worried about when it started to look like they would never get this sequel together.” Timmy’s words are muffled by the back of Armie’s t-shirt.

“Is this question #28?”

“No, I made it up.”

Armie laughs gently. “Fine. What were you worried about?”

The voice is soft behind Armie’s ear. “That I would never get to legally kiss you again.”

Kiss you.

Kiss.

You.

Armie decides it’s safer to focus on any of the other words. He picks one.

“Legally?”

Timmy climb-crawls over him, lands back on the bed now face-to-face with Armie. “You know.”

“I really don’t.”

“As in, I could do it without anyone wondering if…”

“You make no sense.”

“That there would be no questions asked, because Luca would just tell me to.”

“What questions would there be? You don’t need Luca to do it.”

“But I do.”

“We could do it right now, and can you see Luca anywhere? No.”

“Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like that. Like we actually could. Because you don’t mean it.”

“I do.”

“Okay, then. Kiss me,” Timmy challenges him.

Armie moves his head closer, just to show both himself and Timmy that this is no big deal. His nose touches the tip of Timmy’s.

“See? You can’t do it,” Timmy accuses him after it’s been a minute and they’ve done nothing but stared at each other’s faces.

It breaks the spell and Armie moves away. “Why would you even want to do it?”

“You know.”

“You really are good with words tonight, Chalamet.”

“Come on, just tell me you don’t want to and I’ll stop bugging you.”

Armie intended to infuse his reply with frustration but instead, it comes out gentle, tender. “I can’t.”

“Can’t tell me or can’t kiss me?”

Armie pulls Timmy towards him by the hem of his ridiculous and ridiculously expensive Hawaiian shirt and says, barely audibly: “Can’t tell you.”

Timmy scoots closer, too close, and now his head leans on Armie’s shoulder but Armie’s too dizzy to worry about it until Timmy says: “You know what, I’m going to count to ten, and then I’m going to kiss you. If you don’t want me to, you’re just going to have to stop me.”

“What?” Armie swallows, wets his lips. “But—”

“One,” Timmy says firmly to show that he means it, and Armie stills.

“Two.”

Between three and four, Armie blinks.

“Five.”

Timmy moves his face closer, and Armie can feel the puffs of his breath at every count.

“Six.”

“Seven.”

Armie’s gaze shifts from Timmy’s eyes to his lips and Timmy’s mouth pulls into a smile when he notices.

“Eight.”

Armie doesn’t make an inch of an effort to move.

“Nine.”

They both look up and Armie’s heart skips a beat. Timmy waits for him to tell him to back away, but Armie doesn’t, so slowly, Timmy’s mouth presses onto his.

“Ten.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pop culture references continue: I totally stole Timmy’s countdown move from one Pacey Witter.
> 
> Next chapter on Monday again and don't worry, we'll pick up from the exact moment where this one left off.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Timmy has seen it before but never in a situation where he could’ve actually looked at it, so that’s what he does now.”_

It’s Timmy’s kiss first, warm and sweet, lips barely there but also very much there, and all the earlier times Armie has felt them on his, come flooding back muddled into one. It’s Timmy’s kiss, tentative but eager, with no signs of this being a quick test or merely a dare. It’s Timmy’s kiss—until Armie wants his own, too.

The moment he gets a chance to catch his breath he pushes himself up, firmly flipping Timmy back onto his side of the bed with a yelp and then it’s no longer tender or romantic; it’s a wild animal devouring something that’s been dangled in front of its cage for long enough and finally someone opened the gate. Timmy doesn’t mind and, exhilarated, buries both of his hands under Armie’s shirt to hold on to him and they settle into a playful exploration that makes Armie forget all questions about what this might possibly mean.

They are perfectly contented with just kissing, occasionally laughing into it, until Armie moves even closer and presses against Timmy’s thigh. Timmy stops.

“Is that—?” he smiles.

“What?” Armie breathes into his ear.

Timmy squirms as the beard scratches against his neck. Armie has stopped shaving on Day 1 of the cruise. “You got hard just from kissing me?”

Armie buries his face further into Timmy’s neck and licks. “I think that’s how it works.”

“But, like—“ Timmy stops and practically glows when he makes Armie look at him. “You. Got that hard. From kissing me. Me. After all this time.”

Timmy’s voice makes the tops of Armie’s cheeks feel hot.

“You blush so easily.”

“You annoy me so easily.”

“No, I just—“ Excited like a puppy that’s spied a snack, Timmy snakes his hand between them and Armie skips an exhale when Timmy’s hand reaches the bulge in his tight jeans.

Timmy presses with his thumb and drags; enjoys the noises he gets out of Armie by doing nothing but feeling the fabric on top. Then his slender fingers slide up to the waistband, slip behind the top button as easily as Armie forgets to breathe, and he asks, eyelashes close enough to brush against Armie’s: “Is this okay?”

Armie is hardly able to do anything but nod, so he does. The rush of it all—Timmy, hand, lips, tongue—makes his mind spin and it spins out all the doubts and only leaves want.

Timmy pulls away and Armie misses the pressure immediately but Timmy has done it just to get enough space to maneuver with the buttons. Once all three are undone, he slides his entire hand in, all the way inside Armie’s boxers and finds Armie very ready for more than just kissing.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” he giggles in wonderment as he carefully wraps his fingers around Armie’s cock, and Armie feels the same way.

The words should be enough to snap them out of their daze and into the reality, but they don’t.

Instead, Timmy’s hand slides down Armie’s length, all the way to the base and then up to the tip again and then leaves it, which is far too soon for Armie’s liking, but it’s only because Timmy jumps off the bed to run to the bathroom and comes back with the tiny bottles of the ship’s toiletry kit. He fumbles and drops two but finds the one that says lotion, and all the while Armie just waits for the moment when his fingers are around him again, so when Timmy has trouble removing the seal from the bottle, Armie can’t help but touch himself already. Timmy grabs him by the wrist; makes him pull his hand back out. _No._ _Mine._

“Okay, okay,” Armie laughs as he settles for kicking off his jeans, instead, but this determination from Timmy is new and Armie decides he likes it.

So does his cock when Timmy frees it from the confines of his underwear.

Armie has tried to wiggle out of them, too, after the jeans, but Timmy stops him, lotion finally ready in hand: “No, let me.”

At this point, Armie would agree to anything he’d suggest, and so Timmy gets to follow up by pulling the boxers down himself, with the restraint of a child on a Christmas morning.

Timmy has seen it before but never in a situation where he could’ve actually looked at it, so that’s what he does now. Armie swells further under his gaze and is so hard he can barely stand it by the time Timmy sweeps his thumb along the vein, feels the flesh against his fingers, and then curls his hand around it entirely. A marveling look in his eyes he strokes once, then again, until he finds a rhythm that Armie’s cock seems to like and then switches it, just to prolong things even though it doesn’t seem likely that Armie will last long at all.

It’s absolutely surreal, and crazy, and terribly hot, and Armie hates and loves that Timmy watches him close the whole time. At one point, Armie registers that Timmy seems to be enjoying it just as much as him, but that can’t possibly be true, because this is better than anything he’s ever experienced. He can’t even imagine anything better to exist, except maybe, maybe, if Timmy’s mouth would—

Just the thought of that turns out to be too much.

Armie has no time to warn Timmy and he comes all over his stomach, his green t-shirt, and Timmy’s exquisitely deft right hand. Lightheaded and in the middle of the mess of the lotion and himself, he tries to say thank you, but to this day, he’s not sure if he ever said the words out loud.

Through his haze he feels Timmy lay down next to him on the bed and kiss his damp neck. Armie turns to look at him and Timmy smiles a smug grin that lifts one side of his mouth higher than the other as he wipes his hands with the tissues from the nightstand and watches Armie come down from the high.

After a while, when his pulse is returning to normal and he finds his words again, Armie wipes himself up with the hem of his shirt and then turns his head, grabs Timmy’s chin, sweeps his thumb on his jaw. “Your turn?”

Timmy, while proud of his accomplishment, is already straining in his designer slacks so Armie doesn’t need to ask twice. In his remaining euphoria he wants to not only return, but rather top, the favor and so he tells Timmy to keep lying back.

“Armie, what are you—”

Timmy looks surprised as Armie scoots lower on the bed, grabs the hem of his stupid tropical shirt and starts unbuttoning from the bottom. He pushes the shirt open as soon as he can, parting the pink and green hibiscuses that are the size of his own head, and Timmy tries to shimmy himself out of the shirt, but Armie tells him to keep it on.

“It’s crazy enough, to be kinda…you know.”

His mouth does that thing where he’s embarrassed to admit he likes something and Timmy laughs, pulls Armie up to him by the back of his neck.

“You always liked the crazy things,” he says before kissing him.

Armie leaves his lips to gasp for air as he slides his mouth along Timmy’s chest, wide open and warm, then over his nipple because he’s always wondered if certain things had been genuine reactions or just convincing acting. He’d wondered correctly, and Timmy’s throat lets out a familiar moan. Armie grins into Timmy’s skin and moves further down on his body, treasuring every rib and valley and when he arrives at his stomach, he thumbs the faint lines of the muscles he’s been stealing looks at on the sundeck all week.

“Where did these come from?” he asks and kisses one.

Timmy sucks in his stomach and holds his breath while Armie strokes the skin over his abs.

“I had to work out for this thing I did,” he mumbles.

Armie barely listens as his mouth makes contact again with the newly-formed goosebumps. “Because last time I kissed here this was soft…”

Abs or no abs, his skin is still deliriously soft and Armie kisses his sides too, and up his chest again, his lips, and then all the way down again. By then, the impatient Timmy has started to cant his hips up in a way that can’t be misinterpreted.

“Alright, alright, I can take a hint!”

One stroke over his pants and Armie gets Timmy to moan again, only this time it’s peppered with grunts. He grabs the waistband of Timmy’s slacks and finds a clasp that’s not quite a button nor a buckle, fiddles with it for a moment, then slows down, pretends to have trouble with the fancy closing mechanism. He tugs and…nothing. It looks like he’s giving up.

“It’s just— Large hands, you know?”

“Armie!” Timmy arches his hips and whimpers with frustration.

Armie chuckles, raises his palms, makes a show of letting go of the pants. “Maybe you’d like to give it a try yourself?”

Timmy’s hands fly to the clasp in an instant and tug at it eagerly, getting it to open in no time.

“Oh, so that’s how it works!” Armie smirks and Timmy pulls him to his face by the neck of his t-shirt that they had ruined earlier and kisses him wet between the words _I hate you_, followed by _Not really_.

After Timmy lets him go, Armie asks, thinking he’s teased him enough: “Can I?”

Timmy nods feverishly and Armie shuffles back down on the bed, pushes the Fendi pants down and then yanks them all the way off, rough and robust, to reveal the rest of the kid. Long limbs, milky thighs, nest of hair curled from the dampness of excitement or maybe it was always like that, and the hard length reaching up from the swirls.

It had been playful, even mischievous until then, but tenderness takes over him when he sees Timmy lying in front of him, trusting, hair disheveled, half-undressed with only the drapes of the flowery shirt spread under him. Gently, Armie parts the thighs and presses his lips on the skin. On the inside of a knee, then above that spot, then above that. Soon, Timmy gasps and his hand flies to grasp at a fistful of Armie’s hair when the scruff of the beard makes contact with the sensitive skin on his inner thighs.

He lets Armie take flesh and skin between his teeth there, not enough to leave a mark but plenty to remind him where and how close to things Armie’s mouth is. He lets Armie travel the same path up the other limb but his thighs start to tremble, and Armie needs to hold him in place when he finally crouches closer and presses his lips under the tip of Timmy’s cock.

Already slick and hard, it likes when the scruff on Armie’s chin drags on the shaft. Timmy’s eyes fall shut involuntarily, but the look Armie managed to catch in them before that is more than enough to spur him on, and he takes the silken flesh into his mouth.

There have been secret nights when he’s wondered about this, too, and he remembers particular ones when he’d scolded himself for even letting himself think about it, and after coming in his lonely bed, he had sworn it would never happen again. Now that it’s happening for real, he’d never want it to stop.

He licks with the wide of his tongue, trying to think of what he would like to have done to himself, and after a particularly successful swirl at the crown, Timmy curses and a low noise resembling a jungle animal in heat fills the room.

“Yeah, I figured you might like that,” Armie grins against the tip. He does the same move again and there’s a desperate _please,_ and then another, as Timmy tries to thrust upwards, but Armie continues to hold him against the bed by the hips, because he wants to do this, do all the work, now that he has the one thing in his mouth that it was made for. As much as it’s about his desire to do this right, it’s also about wanting to show Timmy how well Armie can treat him even—and especially—when he’s at his most vulnerable.

But after Armie takes Timmy as deep into his mouth as he can, Timmy doesn’t last terribly long either. The years-long wait surely plays a part in it, but Armie prides himself on his first-timer skills nonetheless when Timmy writhes, gasps, and finally tenses up and stills, and when Timmy comes, Armie surprises them both by letting him do so all the way down his throat.

After their remaining clothes have been disposed of and any messes cleaned up between incredulous laughs and dizzy kisses, Timmy falls asleep first, spent. Armie tells himself that none of this was meant to be romantic, it was merely about the fun and the release of urges, but he can’t help himself, and so Armie softly presses his lips on top of Timmy’s head before he wraps the white sheets of the Mediterranean Princess tighter around himself and dozes off, too.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“What happens in Hawaii, stays in Hawaii.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a night in paradise there’s bound to be trouble in—well, paradise.

Armie feels the faint throbbing of a headache coming on as he watches Timmy wake up. It’s past eleven and they have definitely missed the breakfast hour.

When he sees Timmy stir, he closes his eyes and acts as if he’s only now waking up to the commotion, too. He yawns, stretches, turns his head to see Timmy’s face next to him.

“Hi.” Timmy’s voice is hoarse but there’s a smile on his face.

“Good morning,” Armie says and then makes a show of lifting the duvet to find himself naked underneath. He scrunches his brow, pretends to be surprised. “Um, wait. I remember that we drank quite a lot last night and that you came to sleep here, but did we— We didn’t, did we?”

He really shouldn’t do this, because the look in Timmy’s eyes immediately changes from languid to one of a deer in headlights.

“What? Armie, do you…do you not remember?”

“Remember what?”

Armie tries to keep up the ruse for a little longer, but can’t help himself and bursts into a laugh. “Oh man, you’re too easy to fuck with.”

Also, how could he not remember, he’ll remember the feeling of Timmy’s cock in his mouth for the rest of his life, he thinks but keeps it to himself.

Timmy exhales, relieved, but there’s still an edge of nervousness left in his laugh. “That wasn’t funny, man.”

“Come on, it was. A little bit.”

“No.”

Timmy swats him on the chest, tries to poke him on the sides, but it’s useless and backfires, because Armie isn’t ticklish and Timmy only ends up at the receiving end himself: squirming between the mattress and Armie until he’s wheezing and pleading for mercy.

Armie relents and rolls off of him and Timmy remains, slack from laughter, staring at the ceiling with a wide smile on his face. Armie watches him and tries to remember the last time they’ve been as happy and unarmed with each other.

He tries to get one more poke in, but Timmy grabs his hand with both of his and holds it hostage to his chest.

“No more,” he breathes and closes his eyes. “No more. Besides, my head is killing me.”

Armie can’t deny that he’s not in the best shape of his life, either. What in the universe’s name did they put in those cocktails on this ship?

A long moment passes and when Timmy finally opens his eyes, the smile is gone. He tries to read Armie’s face and his seriousness catches on to Armie.

“So. Last night. What do you think? A…mistake?”

Timmy’s careful, nervous question sends a cold wave up Armie’s spine. His eyes land on the phone on the nightstand on Timmy’s side. Right. Timmy must be thinking of his girlfriend or however he defines his relationship with her.

With that, Armie’s drop of hope that last night might have meant something after all evaporates, and the throbbing in his head intensifies.

“Well, are you still dating—“ He steadies his voice and motions at Timmy’s phone as if it embodied the very model he cavorts on the covers with.

“Well. Yeah. Bu—“

“Right,” Armie interrupts, sternly. “Well, then we can agree that as fun as this was, this was just an unforeseen event, buoyed by tequila.” He tries to make light of it. “It happened on the international waters, no one needs to know. No relationships were harmed in the making of last night.”

Armie turns away, picks up his boxers from the floor on the side of the bed and sits up to start to pull them on. No way is he going to let it show that he cares one bit about coming second to a second-rate model.

“What happens in Hawaii, stays in Hawaii,” he cracks as he puts on a fresh t-shirt.

Timmy’s been quiet but when Armie looks again, he’s also fully dressed.

“If you really think so,” he says as he buttons up his shirt. The flowers of the pattern seem entirely too loud in the daylight.

“Why wouldn’t I? No need for you to mess up a potentially good thing with her, just because we happened to drink a little too much because we were bored and stuck here.”

“That’s what you think it was?”

“What else would it be? We had fun, but that was it. Don’t beat yourself up over it. I don’t. Meant nothing. A slip-up. An accidental reenactment.”

“A reenactment?”

“Yes, a reconstruction of something that has—“

Timmy cuts him off. “Yes, I know what a reenactment is.”

There’s an edge to Timmy’s voice now, and Armie thinks that all of this might be easier for him as long as he can keep it that way. He can handle Timmy being mad at him better than the other stuff.

“I just don’t think this was one, because we’ve never done this before,” Timmy continues.

“We’ve never done this? Never been naked together, in a bed? I’ll have you know that I have footage, seen by millions of people—“

“Yes, but it’s never been real! So you can’t call it a reenactment!”

“We’re fighting over semantics now?”

“Fine. Never mind,” Timmy huffs. “So. I think I’m going to head back to my cabin, I feel like I stink. I think one of the hula dancing judges splashed sauce on me from his shrimp cocktail.”

Armie wishes Timmy would have fought back a little, contested Armie’s suggestion that last night didn’t mean anything, but he doesn’t. Instead, he picks up his phone from the nightstand and his sneakers from the floor, leaving Armie to sit at the edge of the bed in a t-shirt and boxers and heart dropped to his stomach.

Timmy is about to step into the hallway, sneakers in hand, when he turns around at the door: “I don’t think I feel like going to the sundeck today. I might just stay in my cabin. Read, or something. My head’s not feeling super good right now.”

And so he’s gone again.

Armie thinks about a shower for a second but decides to forgo it. Everything around him smells a little bit like Timmy and even though he’s annoyed by him right now, he doesn’t want to wash that away just yet.

He calls room service and manages to order coffee and something resembling a breakfast, and the girl that brings it in a little later doesn’t even bat a lash even though it’s well past noon by then.

Maybe she does this all the time, brings people breakfast at lunch time. Maybe this is what everyone else does on cruises, Armie deduces.

His childhood on the Cayman Islands had cured him of any curiosity towards the Caribbean cruises he sometimes heard people take, so he has no previous experience. Maybe he’s done it all wrong all week, trying to socialize with Timmy on the sundeck or at dinners, when he could’ve just ordered food and enjoyed his peace and quiet on his balcony. At least it would’ve led to fewer awkward situations like this morning, that’s for sure.

After coffee, Armie decides to enjoy the fresh air on the balcony, which requires putting on some pants so as not to terrify the people next door. He takes a Margaret Atwood classic with him even though it’s questionable whether he’d be able to concentrate on reading it, because no matter how much he tries, his thoughts keep going back to the moment last night when Timmy had started counting from one and Armie had felt that maybe, when he got to ten, Armie’s life would finally begin.

And right after, it had been slightly fumbly but still more exquisite, and it had been divine to have Timmy fall asleep within his arms and he had even found his little snore charming. When had he ever thought someone’s snore was charming?

But god, he had been stupid; thinking anything could be different. He should’ve known it was just the tequila talking, and the ten years younger him in Paris had been ten times wiser in staying strong and rejecting the kid. This was exactly what he had been afraid of, Timmy would succumb to the nightly urges but once morning came, he would mean nothing by any of it and it would be only Armie who would be left there, pining for something he should’ve realized was out of his reach.

But that would end here.

Armie puts on his sunglasses and steps out onto the balcony. He pulls up a seat and puts his feet up on the railing, lets the sea breeze clear his head. That works for six minutes, until the door to the balcony on his left on the upper deck opens. Timmy’s head peeks out, but when he sees Armie, he stiffens.

”Um.”

Armie nods. He figures that’s good enough of a greeting in this situation.

Timmy steps out onto his own balcony, taps on the railing as he pretends to be interested in the view. However, there was a time when Armie knew him well enough to know all his tells and so, even now, he sees that Timmy is trying to come up with the courage for something. Finally he comes out with it.

”I was thinking that it might be best if we took an actual break from the questions and stuff.”

What he means is, it would be best if they took an actual break from being around each other.

Armie’s heart constricts, but he hides behind his sunglasses. ”You’re probably right.”

“Yes. So. Enjoy your book.”

“I will.” Armie waves at Timmy with his novel, but Timmy has already turned around and disappeared inside.

Armie gets another seven minutes of pretend reading time in, until his phone lights up with an email. It’s still before dawn in the States. Who could be bothering him at this hour?

Luca.

The email is addressed to Armie only, and he wonders whether Timmy has gotten one. In the message, Luca asks how they are progressing with their list of questions and reminds him that they have to have them all done by the end of the trip. _Director’s orders_.

Armie huffs. The fact that Timmy had bailed out on them today, didn’t bode well. He wonders if they’d ever get to finish them, if they’d ever actually talk normally again.

Armie looks at the email with its stern question marks demanding an answer and deletes it.

Fucking Hawaii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just scroll up to see for yourself that yes, that ‘Happy Ending’ tag is still up there <3 We just have a few more hurdles to get through before that…


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I like that you’re wearing the shirt that we bought together in Texas.”_

Even with views of the sparkling sea, one day spent in the cabin is more than enough and on the second morning after the Hawaiian night—or the Hawaiian incident, as Armie now calls it—he starts to feel claustrophobic. He hasn’t heard anything from Timmy. There’s been occasional movement up on his balcony, so Armie knows he’s probably still alive, but neither of them has tried to initiate any contact.

The ship docks in Livorno, Italy, that morning and Armie picks up the excursion brochure for the first time. It’s been there on the desk since he boarded the ship, but he hasn’t been interested in any on-land activities until now. On the ship, his options would be limited to staying in his cabin all day, or wandering around the ship, hoping not to run into Timmy who must be just as fed up with the cabin life by now.

The brochure lists sightseeing tours to Pisa and Florence as the activities available for the day. Armie’s not jumping for joy at the thought of spending a day in a packed tour bus, but compared to his other two options, how bad could it be?

Armie picks the Florence tour because it lasts longer, thus giving him a longer respite from the ship and from any possible run-ins with the kid who had fallen asleep in his arms but called it a mistake in the morning. He checks the departure time from the cruise line leaflet and leaves the ship early.

As promised, the cruise line tour bus waits at the designated place in front of the terminal. Armie chooses a seat in the back, and when he sees a white pouf step onto the bus and realizes it’s one of the old Danish sisters, he slides all the way down on his seat to hide.

He has no interest in socializing right now. He only wanted a peaceful afternoon away from his bed, away from the sundeck, away from all things reminding him of Timmy. Sitting next to a chatty woman and her questions about his and Timmy’s history doesn’t fit into that picture.

As more and more people keep stepping onto the bus, the seats keep filling up, and Armie’s hopes of a small group and thus, a half-empty, quiet bus, start to wane. But finally, it looks like the tour guide at the front is telling the driver to start the engine, and miraculously, the seat next to Armie’s has remained empty. It looks like it could be the only one left in the bus; maybe the tall American with his surly, unshaven face has looked intimidating enough that no one has dared to take a seat next to him.

Armie doesn’t care what the reason is and sighs with relief. Maybe he’ll get his relaxing afternoon out of this after all.

The bus driver already has the bus running and is preparing to back it out of the parking space, when a loud, red-haired kid on the other side of the aisle from Armie yells:

”No, stop, stop, there’s someone still coming!”

The bus stops and the tour guide opens the front door again to let the last-minute passenger onboard.

Great, Armie thinks, sarcastic. These people, with no care for anyone else’s schedules.

The tour guide raises her voice and asks if there are any empty seats in the back. “We are all booked up here at the front, but my calculations say that there should still be one seat available somewhere on the bus!”

Armie stays quiet, hoping she’s miscalculated and that there would be, indeed, still more seats available somewhere else in the bus, but the same kid who had spotted the last-minute wonder from his window now yells, making a show of pointing at the aisle seat next to Armie:

”Yes, here’s one! There’s a seat available here!”

Armie curses the helpful kid in his mind, moves his backpack out of the way and prepares to pretend he doesn’t speak any of the languages his new seatmate does. He briefly considers the option of just playing mute, when the commotion that’s approaching him in the aisle starts to sound familiar.

“Oh, sorry, sorry, man, thanks…”

He stretches his neck to take a look at the last passenger. It’s Timmy and his backpack, making their way to the empty seat next to Armie.

“What are the odds,” says Timmy when the bus has left the harbor and driven a good ten minutes on the freeway towards the city. He’s the first one of them to say anything.

“Yeah, I already got cabin fever in there,” Armie brushes it off.

“Same here.”

Another ten minutes go by in silence as Armie looks at the landscape passing by, pretends to listen to the tour guide’s narration. Timmy tries to catch the views out of the windows on the other side of the aisle.

Finally, when there’s a restroom stop at a gas station and everyone gets out of the bus to stretch their legs, Timmy speaks again.

He kicks the small pebbles on the ground. Everyone else has gone into the gas station coffee shop for refreshments and left the two of them alone standing by the bus, to fend off the beggars in the parking lot.

“I missed you,” Timmy offers quietly, so quietly that Armie isn’t sure if he imagined it.

He glances at Timmy who shrugs, explains: “It was weird yesterday. To be there. Just by myself. I had already gotten used to—“

“Yeah, me too.” Armie makes it sound like he had already gotten used to having company, too, but what he means is that he had missed Timmy, too.

Timmy smiles. “Truce?”

Armie shakes his hand.

Armie almost regrets that when they get back on the bus and Timmy pulls out his phone.

“Should we...?” He flashes the list of Luca’s questions to Armie. “He sent me a reminder yesterday.”

Resigned, Armie leans back against the seat headrest. “Yeah, he sent me one too.”

Timmy elbows him on his side. “Let’s see where we left off… Question #28. I think it’s your turn. So, here we go: _Tell your partner what you like about them. Be very honest, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met_.“

Armie looks at him, suspicious. “That’s what it says? Really?”

“Yes. Look.” Timmy shows him the phone and no, Timmy wasn’t making any of it up.

“Fine.” Armie rolls his eyes, but his struggle isn’t to come up with things he likes; only things that he feels won’t reveal too much. “I like that…you’re a professional. And came on this godforsaken cruise to try and—yeah.”

“Why wouldn’t I have?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you consider not coming yourself? Be honest.”

“I think the honesty was supposed to pertain only to the things the question asked me to list about you?”

“Armie. Just answer me.” Timmy doesn’t sound like he’s playing anymore.

“Yes, I did consider getting out of the contract,” Armie admits. “Letting them recast Oliver. But the idea of watching someone else do it all with you… I couldn’t do it.”

“Huh.” Timmy thinks for a moment but doesn’t say anything, only prods Armie to continue. “Okay, so back to the question. More things you like about me.”

Armie groans. “How many do I need to give?”

“It doesn’t say but it says things, in plural, so.”

“Got it.”

Armie wants to say that he likes that it’s Timmy here now, that it was Timmy there in Crema what feels like a lifetime ago. He likes that Timmy broke the silence and admitted that he had missed Armie even though they had only been apart for a day. He doesn’t say any of those things, but instead: “I like that you’re wearing the shirt that we bought together in Texas.”

Timmy looks at his old plaid shirt, straightens the hem, visibly pleased that Armie had noticed. Armie, who couldn’t give a shit about clothes as long as they were comfortable.

“You remember this?”

There’s only one way to respond to that and the words are already at the tip of Armie’s tongue, but he’s saved by the tour guide’s voice blasting through the speakers and drowning out any potential continuation of that conversation.

_“And now, ladies and gentlemen, we are entering the historic area of…”_

During the breaks in the tour’s narration, they get four more questions checked off the list, and Timmy is happy. Armie is happy too, because maybe they’ll finish those after all and Luca won’t kill him. What makes him even happier, though, is that things are returning back to normal, back to where they were before the Hawaiian night.

They joke as they always did, and when the bus returns to the harbor at the end of the day, Armie challenges Timmy to a race up the stairs to the 12th deck.

Armie of course wins.

“You got a head start! Not fair!” Timmy pants and wheezes when he reaches the finish line much later than Armie. “And your legs are longer than mine!”

He pushes Armie, playful, and Armie grabs him by the wrists. “No, no objections now, you knew the conditions when you accepted the challenge!”

Armie holds Timmy’s hands behind his back, pushes him against the nearest wall to tame his protesting, but then a door opens next to them and a fellow passenger comes out, gives them a long look. Timmy ducks and escapes under Armie’s elbow and runs to the staircase, laughing.

Armie stays, watches as Timmy disappears up the stairs to the 13th deck, and smiles to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for still being on this journey <3 They clearly can’t stay away from each other, but if it seems like this was way too easy of a fix and that they glossed over the hard talk that they should've had instead, you would be correct. It’s calm before the storm as next time we will revisit the past one last time, in order to start fully fixing things in the present.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Remember that night at the Beverly Hilton?”_

On Day 10, they realize they only have a few questions left. Which is excellent, because it’s also their last full day on the cruise. The loud-speakers announce a black-tie Grand Jubilee dinner with dancing coming up in the ship’s ballroom that evening, and the general atmosphere among the passengers is already a little wistful at the end of the vacation but also expectant of the evening’s extravaganza.

Armie and Timmy have decided to start early, finish off the last remaining questions and enjoy their last day of paid vacation afterwards. The mood is light, almost flirty after the reconciliation of the day before, and Armie readily answers Question #34, what he would save from his house in the case of fire, and patiently waits as Timmy contemplates Question #35, whose death within his family would be most disturbing to him.

After that, Timmy checks the list of questions one more time. “Okay, I think that was it, and there’s only Question #36 left and that’s for you…”

He stretches on his sun lounger and Armie thinks, probably for the millionth time, how the kid is nothing but limbs. And a mouth. And maybe a couple more organs.

“Oh no, we jumped over Question #33,” Timmy then frowns.

“We did?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what got into us.”

Armie raises his eyebrows suggestively. “Yeah, me neither. No idea.”

Timmy laughs, kicks Armie’s calf with his toes, pulls them back just in time so that Armie doesn’t manage to grab onto his foot.

“Anyway, here goes, thirty-three: _Is there anything you’ve wanted to tell someone but haven’t,”_ Timmy reads.

As Timmy finishes the question, Armie can only think of one thing.

There’s something he hasn’t told Timmy, even though he knows parts of it, but maybe it’s finally time that he heard the rest, too. Timmy keeps looking at him, expecting eyes all innocent and Armie gets a hunch that this may be a bad idea, but in the name of the honesty that they’ve cultivated here, he decides to do it.

“Remember that night at the Beverly Hilton? At the awards? Or, I mean, after?”

Timmy’s innocent eyes grow serious in an instant.

“Um. Yeah? What about it?”

Eight and a half years earlier, they had gone to the award show in Beverly Hills together. Neither of them had had an official plus one that night, and they had been feeling half-happy about having each other there, half-weird about doing one of these things together once more, so long after their own promotion tour had ended.

There had been something in the air from the moment Armie’s car had stopped at the Sunset Tower to pick Timmy up; when he had climbed into the limo it had been like a return to the beginning with Timmy’s hair resembling Elio’s except the angles of his face were of a man, not of a boy. The car had driven down Sunset Boulevard and it had been a perfect early evening outside with light pink California skies but all they had seen was each other as they had laughed together on the back seat.

They had sat next to each other at the ceremony, Timmy’s hand landing on Armie’s arm or thigh even more than usual, so Armie had known it wasn’t just him who had felt that something was different. Granted, they hadn’t seen each other for a while, and it could’ve been just about the joy of a reunion with a friend, but when Timmy had kept borrowing his vape pen and made sure Armie watched him put it between his lips for a hit, Armie had become certain it hadn’t been just that.

And it wasn’t. Once the awards and the speeches were over, they had mingled with the other guests for a moment until Timmy had reached up and whispered in Armie’s ear:

“Do you want to escape this? My team has a suite upstairs.”

Armie had pulled him away from the group.

“A suite?”

“Yeah, they thought if someone needed to rest or store their stuff or whatever; have a private conversation. But I have the key, too, and we could just hang, without any of—,“ Timmy had waved at the ballroom glittering with Hollywood’s finest, ”—this.”

Armie had nodded and so they had snuck upstairs. 

Timmy had ostensibly suggested it as a chance for them to hang out in privacy, but the glances they had exchanged in the elevator had made it clear that that was not what was going to happen. The intent look in Timmy’s eyes had reminded Armie of that night in Paris, but now they were only lightly buzzed from the champagne served during the ceremony, not enough that this could have been written off as a drunken folly.

When they had approached the top floor, Timmy had taken a step towards Armie and played with the hem of his jacket, but the elevator had chimed and the doors opened before Armie had had a chance to do anything.

Timmy had handed him the room key. “You do the honors.” He had placed his hand low on Armie’s back and huddled close when Armie had used the key to let them into the suite.

Once in the room, decorated with subdued peach colors all around, Timmy had taken the key from him, thrown it onto the glass table of the sitting area and pulled Armie by the hand into the bedroom.

Despite Timmy’s deliberate advances, it had been Armie who had kissed him first in the bedroom of the suite. It had been forceful, almost pleading for Timmy to let him out of his agony and Timmy had responded in kind, hands and teeth pulling Armie close, hands at the back of his neck, hands grasping at Armie’s hair as much as he could reach.

Armie had crowded him against the wall so that there’d been no air left between them and they’d kept exchanging the same breath from mouth to mouth. They hadn’t done this in over two years, not since that night on the Piazza Duomo in Bergamo. Yet, neither of them had questioned what was happening between them, it had been as if they had continued where they had left off and the only thing Armie found himself wondering about was how he—they—had been able to resist for so long.

“I missed you,” Timmy had finally said. “I can’t go this long without seeing you.”

“I missed you, too.”

“No, I mean it. I need more of you.”

“This is already quite a bit more than what we’ve ever done,” Armie had said as he had kissed Timmy’s earlobe.

“I know, but—it’s not just about this.” Timmy had pushed Armie away to be able to look at him. “I don’t know what this is, but I really care about you and it only gets worse when we’re apart and I know you have her but—“

Armie had looked at him as he had kept smoothing lapel of Armie’s jacket determined, desperate, confused. The question at the front of Armie’s mind had been: why hadn’t he waited? Why hadn’t he waited to meet this cherubic, exhausting, smart, kind, intense kid?

“I do want you, too,” he had simply confessed and the smile that had spread on Timmy’s face had lit up the muted darkness of the bedroom.

The confusion gone, he had kissed Armie and pulled on his bowtie until it had untied, pushed Armie’s jacket off until it had dropped to the floor. Delighted laughs as Armie had kissed him back; hands squeezing his arms; tongue everywhere.

“All these clothes,” Armie had mumbled and tugged at Timmy’s collar, “—but every time I just remember you without them. All of you.”

“You can take them off,” Timmy had offered eagerly between licking into his mouth.

Armie hadn’t needed to be told twice and his hands had pulled Timmy’s shirt out of his pants and started to slide up Timmy’s waist underneath, until he had suddenly frozen.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” Timmy had stopped for a moment and then heard it too.

Someone was in the other room of the suite.

They had heard the unmistakable click-clack of heels, the sound getting louder every passing moment. Armie had pulled away, picked up his jacket and put it back on haphazardly. Timmy had looked paralyzed, pressed a thumb against his lips.

“It’s probably nothing. No one knows we’re here,” he had said, but then the door had opened and it was Timmy’s publicist, Lena.

She had turned on the light.

“Here you are, Timmy, we were looking everywhere for y—“

She had stopped and looked at the two of them. Time had stood still as Armie had glanced at Timmy with his shirt untucked and if that hadn’t been enough, his lips had been puffy and red and his hair disheveled. Armie had felt a heat rising up his neck.

Lena had been the one to speak first.

“Alright,” she had cleared her throat, grave. “Armie, I think they were looking for you downstairs, too. So you should probably go.”

Armie had nodded and glanced again at Timmy. “Okay, I’ll see you two downstairs.” With one last look at Timmy, he had left.

They had seen each other briefly in the lobby, before Armie had watched Timmy disappear into the crowd of people and cars. They had only spoken about it two days later.

“It was a mistake. We can’t,” Armie had said and it had seemed to encompass everything. Too risky for careers, for lives, for hearts. The conversation had taken place over the phone, the old-fashioned way, so that neither had seen the other’s misted eyes.

After that, there had been some calls and messages, but nothing that would’ve crossed the line, nothing that wasn’t fit for anyone else to see. Then those had tapered off, too.

Armie had concentrated on his family and marriage because at that time, it had still seemed possible to fix the things that had started to crackle, and Timmy had kept being linked with starlets, changing them at respectable intervals—not too often as to be labeled a player, but always when the girls or their teams had started to expect things to get more serious between them.

That is the part of the Beverly Hilton story that they both knew, and Timmy remembers it well as he now looks at Armie in the bright sunlight on the deck of the Mediterranean Princess.

“What about that night, Armie? I know what happened. Believe me, I’ve thought about it more than its fair share.”

“What did you think about? I mean, what do you think happened?”

“I thought we had finally stopped hiding from the truth that night, and then—just nothing. I thought about it for so long, trying to get it into my head that you had just realized that you didn’t want me, after all. That it was all about the chase but when I was there…” Timmy’s words drift off.

Armie shakes his head. “It… wasn’t that.”

“What was it, then? Tell me.”

Seeing how affected Timmy still is about something that happened over eight years ago makes Armie second-question his decision to bring this up in the first place, but there’s no turning back now.

“You see, quickly after I left the suite, I realized I had dropped my bowtie there, so I came back up, and I heard you talking with her.”

Armie tells him how he had heard Timmy and Lena discussing, her telling Timmy how it would hurt his career to be known as a homewrecker, as someone who steals his costars from their spouses, and about the inevitable media storm that would follow if that costar was, on top of it all, also a man. If he was known for all that before his career had really even started, he could forget about ever achieving the things he wanted.

“I didn’t know you heard that.”

“I did. And after that, I decided I couldn’t do that to you,” Armie finishes. “So I made myself forget.”

Timmy looks at him, stunned at first, but the astonishment in his eyes gradually turns to seething.

“Decided. Decided? Just like that, on your own?”

Armie nods, but it doesn’t stop the storm that’s rising.

“Did it even occur to you to ask me?” Timmy’s words are sharp, well-enunciated.

“She insisted that it would hurt your career, and I knew how ambitious you were and I knew she was right. Besides, I didn’t hear you disagreeing with her.”

“You really think I would have told her that? To someone who just works for me? God, I hadn’t even had a chance to properly tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“That I cared more about you than about any fucking careers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things have to get worse before they can get better... ❤️ We'll pick up from here on Monday again.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Maybe it’s too long ago.”_

Armie had expected Timmy to be surprised, but he hadn’t been prepared for him to be this upset.

“I couldn’t have done it just for me,” he tries to explain.

Timmy stares at the pool next to them but sees nothing.

Armie wishes he would say something and continues: ”I would have risked everything to have you. You have to believe me on that. But for you? I knew I had to do it for you.”

Timmy gets up, spreads his arms, then doesn’t know what to do with them or with any of this information. He paces back and forth next to Armie’s sun lounger. “I can’t believe this. I would have… I don’t know, given up on everything for you—”

“That’s exactly what I didn’t want you to do—”

“—trusted you with my life, and you—you!—you just go behind my back and—”

“Timmy, people are looking,” Armie says quietly.

“I don’t care! What made you think you could just decide everything for me?”

Armie doesn’t have any answers left. “Because it was for the best. Back then, the industry was still what it was. You wouldn’t have— And look at where you are now. Great films, two Golden Globes, still a long career ahead of you.”

He feels confident that he’d done the right thing at the time, but Timmy shakes his head. “I just can’t believe you did that.”

He backs away, heads for the exit.

Armie grabs his things and runs after him, but Timmy only speeds up.

“Where are you going?” Armie yells after him.

Timmy stops in the lobby, turns around sharply. “Back to my cabin because I can’t even look at you right now.”

“But—”

“Don’t follow me!”

Armie stops and watches Timmy walk away, getting thinner and thinner at the end of the hallway until he disappears into the elevator.

At two in the afternoon, Armie walks up to the 13th deck to slip a note under Timmy’s door. Timmy’s turned off his phone, but maybe the old-fashioned approach would work: _Can we just talk? _

At three, he goes to find something to eat since they had skipped lunch, and when he checks, the note is still there, the white corner peeking out from under Timmy’s door, but when he gets back after four and checks again, it’s gone.

Around five-thirty, he hears shuffling behind his own door and a paper slides in.

Timmy has scribbled under Armie’s question:_ Not yet. Too mad._

Armie holds the note, takes a pen to write on the next line_: I get it and I’m sorry. Let me know when you’re ready. _He thinks for a while and decides to add a bait_: PS. We still have Question #36 to do._

He’s crouching on the floor of the hallway on the 13th deck, slipping the note back to Timmy when another passenger, an old man, walks by and Armie greets him, pretending to have lost his contact lens. The man says he’d offer to help but with his bad back, he wouldn’t be able to get up if he got down there. Armie thanks him and says he understands.

Armie waits till six, seven.

He paces around in his cabin, restless, thinking how he never would’ve thought it would all end like this. He still feels certain that he’d done the right thing; the last thing he would’ve wanted to do was to take Timmy’s dreams away from him, but he’s starting to realize that there were two of them in the situation. What kills him the most is that all these years, Timmy has thought that he never wanted him, when all along, it was the opposite that had landed them in this in the first place.

At eight, the ship’s final dinner is supposed to start but they are now going to miss it. Armie couldn’t care less. He only cares about having Timmy come and knock on his door, call him, anything.

At quarter past nine, there’s a sound behind his door, and the familiar paper slides in again.

_Fine. If you insist_, he reads and heads over to Timmy’s door right away.

With all the other passengers at the final dinner, the hallways are quiet and empty and Timmy opens the door on Armie’s second knock, steps to the side to let Armie in.

Without a hello or looking at Armie in the face, he says: “I’m only doing this because of Luca and the question.”

“Oh.” The cool reception from Timmy deflates Armie’s expectations, but he tries to stay calm and appear conciliatory when he says: “Yes, of course.”

Timmy presses the door close.

Armie runs his hand through his hair, his heart speeding up.

“Well, okay. See, Question #36 is: _Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he might handle it_.”

“Alright?” Timmy looks him in the eye now but gives away nothing.

“Well, there’s this kid. Who has taken over my life ever since I met him. And his happiness means more to me than my own, and that made me do something stupid. And it was a long time ago but he’s still upset and I fear that it’s too late to fix it.”

Timmy sighs, sits down at the ledge of the panorama window of his cabin.

“You’re right.”

“About what?”

“About what you did being stupid. Colossally stupid. Even for you. But you’re also right about it being too late. Too much time has passed, we’re not who we were anymore and I don’t know if I ever even knew who you—“

Armie rushes to interrupt. “Of course you did.”

“Back then I thought that I knew that you wanted me too and—”

“I did. I do. I thought it was pretty clear on the Hawaiian night.”

“Which you called a mistake the next morning,” Timmy reminds him.

“I didn’t— It was the best night of my life. I had never thought that we could— And then we did and— I certainly didn’t think it was a mistake. I only went along because you said it first. What are you saying? Did you not mean it?”

“I was used to thinking that anything that happens between us is a mistake,” Timmy says sadly. “That time in Paris, and you said the same thing on the phone after that night at the Hilton.”

“Timmy…” Armie tries to reach over but Timmy moves his hand away. “You know now why I had to say that. Otherwise you would’ve tried to fight me on the decision and it would have just prolonged things and hurt us more. I thought that a clean break was the best thing I could give you.”

“Clean? It wasn’t very clean. I didn’t just forget, like you seemed to. I couldn’t move on just like that. I replayed that night for months, and thought about you for years. Up until the day we came onto this ship, I couldn’t see a picture of you without wanting to call you. And let me tell you, there are a lot of pictures of you out there!”

Timmy laughs but the sound is hollow.

“I didn’t forget. I tried to, but— And I followed everything that you did,” Armie offers. “Every time Luca called, I asked if he knew how you were doing. He rarely did, and instead,” Armie shakes his head, “—went on about a new wallpaper he had found for their salon or something, but I didn’t stop asking.”

“So what now? It’s been so long, we’ve already lived lifetimes away from each other.”

“Maybe if we— Well, to begin with, do you think you can forgive me? It was a long time ago, like you said.”

“Maybe it’s too long ago. And nothing has changed. You’re still married, so you would still be breaking up a family.”

“Except I’m not. Not for long, at least.”

“What?” Timmy is stunned and Armie can’t blame him. Maybe he should have told him earlier.

“We separated last month while I was shooting in Italy. I moved out a couple weeks later, as soon as I got home. We had the talk while I was still in Rome. It wasn’t ideal to do it over the phone, we probably should have waited till I got home, but it wasn’t exactly a surprise to either of us, so maybe it was all the same.” He looks resigned.

“But why?”

Armie sighs, sits on the bed and Timmy doesn’t stop him. “We had gone to Rome together initially, but one week in, she left home saying she didn’t want to do it anymore. I asked if she meant relocating every time I film. She said no, she meant she didn’t want to do any of it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? After the night we—, I thought that’s why you wanted the whole thing to just go away. What happens in Hawaii, or what was the cliché that you used?”

“I didn’t want your pity. Or think about it here, with you. Besides, it’s new. We haven’t told that many people yet.” Armie looks at his ring. They had agreed to keep wearing them until things were public and it hadn’t bothered Armie until now. “Just her family. Some friends. Luca. You would have found out when everyone else in the world did.”

Timmy’s face goes through a string of emotions and parses together a conclusion. “So let me get this straight. You’re now looking to replace her and happened to think of me? Like we’re in some kind of, in and out kind of thing, what is it, that door that—” Timmy waves around and grasps at words, “—that door that just spits people out.”

“Revolving door?”

“That.”

“No.” Armie wants to makes this clear. “No. You want to know why she left Rome? Because I kept reminiscing about my time in Italy with you. She said something along the lines of, ‘I was there, too, you know.’ And I knew that, of course I knew that, but I couldn’t help it. All my memories were about you.”

“Me?”

“Everything is always about you. I took that Henry James movie, the best thing I ever did, all because of you. Even the years away from you were only because of you.”

Armie’s never thought of it like that before, but he sees now how many of his thoughts, choices, hopes have all revolved around one person, and it hasn’t been the person he’s been sharing his life with.

But he thinks also that if he feels that it’s too late for Timmy to be upset over something that he had done so long ago, then maybe Timmy is right, it’s also too late for them to be anything. So much time has passed and if they haven’t been able to figure it out in ten years, it might be high time to stop trying. Maybe he needs to set Timmy free and also release himself from the expectations that they would ever be on the same page at the same time.

And so when Timmy, moved by Armie’s confession, says quietly that he didn’t know, Armie can’t believe he’s about to say this but: ”Well, it’s true. You mean everything to me. Always have, but maybe that just isn’t enough?

“But what if it is?”

Armie knows what those words could entail, what Timmy might be offering, probably _is_ offering, but he looks at Timmy who stands there, hand raking through curls that have not been in place since he ran away from Armie on the sundeck at noon. Stands there uncertain, hoping, and Armie wants to kick himself for having put Timmy here again. Whatever he does, it always ends with Timmy upset and hurt. It was exactly what he had tried to avoid, with his clean breaks and all.

He can’t keep doing this to him. It’s been going on for too long, and it needs to stop, once and for all. This is different than last time, now Timmy knows everything and Armie’s not doing it in secret, even though he’s still doing it for the only reason that matters: to protect him from any further heartbreak.

“I can’t keep hurting you like this, Tim. All of this, us, has been going on for too long and it’s better if you just— I mean, we’ll always be friends, but I think you should just go home to your girlfriend. Because like you said, maybe it’s all in the past. Too much water has passed under the bridge and all those things.”

Every cliché feels banal as he looks at Timmy who seems defeated, similarly to the time in Paris when he had allowed himself to be put to bed, limp, knowing there’s nothing he could do to change Armie’s mind.

“I‘ve never stopped caring,” he adds, when Timmy says nothing. “But don’t you think that if it was meant to be, it would have happened already? Without all this back and forth?”

Timmy looks at the floor and shrugs. Then steels himself and looks up. “So that’s it? That’s your final decision?”

Armie gets up and sighs. “I just think it’s too late. And it kills me to see how I always end up hurting you. I don’t want to do that anymore.” He takes a step towards Timmy, then another and finally Timmy lets Armie hold him. Cheek leaning on top of Timmy’s head, Armie apologizes: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to say.”

“Right.” Timmy looks out the window, but the sea is dark outside so he only sees their reflections, Armie’s arms around him. He can still almost disappear within his embrace.

“But hey, at least we got the questions done.” Armie winces at his hollow attempt of a joke as his eyes meet Timmy’s on the reflection.

Timmy doesn’t laugh. He’s quiet and then mutters something.

“What was that?”

“There’s one more task on the list, after the questions,” Timmy repeats, louder. He pulls away and pulls up Luca’s email on his phone and shows the bottom of the page to Armie. _Final task: Share four minutes of uninterrupted eye contact, _it says_._

They stare at the screen and agree that with the way things stand between them, they would not be doing the final task.

“Not the best idea.”

“No.”

After a silence, Timmy notes: “We also missed the Grand Jubilee dinner.”

“I don’t care.”

“Me neither.”

Armie tries to end it on a friendly note. “When are you flying home? My flight won’t leave until the day after tomorrow, so maybe we could hang out in Rome, I could take you to this great restaurant that our DP found behind Piazza Navona.”

Timmy looks up, stern. “My flight’s tomorrow, at noon. I need to leave for the airport as soon as we dock.”

They realize that they will really be parting now, with no chance of spending any time together the next day. Armie’s disappointed but can’t think of anything else to say or do. It seems like everything, and then some, had already come out that night.

“So I’ll see you on location, then?” Surrounded by the safety of the crew and the assistants running around and the catering and the sound guy with his equipment and Luca and his dinners and everything else that will distract them from the fact that things will forever be different now.

“I guess so. Yes.”

“Got it.”

Armie nods and is about to grab the door handle when Timmy’s voice comes behind him, soft: “Armie?”

He turns on his heels.

“Can I at least kiss you goodnight? Once more, for old times’ sake?”

Armie’s shoulders slump. Timmy stands there, hands in his pockets, right there but so many years away. There’s nothing Armie wants more, but if they open this Pandora’s box now, everything that he’s just managed to tuck inside would rush out again.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Of course. I just—I don’t know what I thought.”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to,” Armie explains, feeling terrible about rejecting him. “I just think that like with the final task, right now it’s better if we don’t make this any harder than it already is.“

Timmy nods, but the expression on his face breaks Armie’s heart and he has to force himself to leave.

“I’ll see you on location,” he repeats. “Good night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s always darkest right before the dawn… Oof, merely editing this made me almost break my own heart, but next we look for the sunrise and three chapters are pleeenty to make things right. We’ll see on Friday how everything starts to unfold and I might post a sneak peek on Tumblr already as a WIP Wednesday, to tide you over.
> 
> (We also couldn’t resolve everything here, because we needed to set things up for the most used romantic movie trope ever. Bonus points and tropical drinks for the ones who can guess what it is.)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _How stupid had he been?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I have a terrible problem. I have written two different endings to this story. Both happy (!!), both trope-y, both include someone realizing what a colossal mistake they’ve made; just in a different way. And now I like them both so much that I can’t throw either of them away.
> 
> They both start from this point in the story—Armie has just left Timmy’s cabin for the last time—so this is what I’ve decided: I will continue to post this original version according to the Monday/Friday plan, but after we get to the end, I’ll post the alternate version, too, all at once as one long extra chapter. Think of it as one final gift, or a DVD extra of sorts?
> 
> I do hope you’ll stick around for both. But now: the original ending first.

Armie takes one last look out the window at the bustling morning of the port of Civitavecchia, then another around the cabin that has been his home for ten days.

It’s the last day of the cruise, they’ve finally arrived in destination in Rome and it’s time to leave. He grabs his luggage and closes the door to his cabin, takes the elevator down to the entrance deck.

There’s already a crowd of passengers waiting to disembark and he spots Timmy, his hat pulled low and a backpack on his back. He notices Armie, too, but the crowd is packed dense and all Armie can do is raise his hand in a small wave from the distance and mouth: _have a safe flight._

Timmy nods and plasters a smile on his face.

Armie’s heart hurts. He knows he’ll see Timmy again in a couple of weeks on location when they start shooting, but it’s never going to be the same anymore. This is how it’s going to be from now on, a certain distance between them, whether there are other people physically between them or not.

But he did make the right decision, right? After everything, it’s too late for anything to actually, legitimately happen between them.

Armie glances at Timmy again and catches him already looking, and he doesn’t stop until the ship’s doors open and the crowd starts moving, forcing Timmy to move along with it.

Armie gets left behind in the sea of passengers pushing him from left and right, and Timmy walks far ahead of him, gets further and further away from him, until there’s no more left of him than an occasional peek at dark curls in the sea of people. Armie remembers that doomed night at the Beverly Hilton when Timmy disappeared similarly into the crowd and he was left behind, his mind knowing he had done the right thing, but his heart being in the biggest disagreement. Back then it had been a sea of jewelry and Hollywood hairdos around him, now it’s a commotion of white hair and hearing devices, and when Armie gets to the bottom of the escalator, Timmy is permanently gone from the lobby of the terminal.

Loss.

That’s the only word Armie can think of to describe the knot in his throat.

Loss of the last hope, last possibility that anything would ever come of them. Loss of a brother, a best friend. Loss of the love of his life. All because he had—after they both finally knew everything, with no feelings held back, no secrets between them—said that he didn’t see how it would be possible for them to be together.

It hits him like a lightning and he feels the goosebumps all the way from his knees and thighs to the tops of his cheeks.

What had gotten into him? How stupid had he been, insisting it was too late for them? Timmy had, maybe, tried to offer that they try, finally try, and he had thought that it would be better to throw all that away just because—because of what, exactly?

And so, in the middle of the busy Mediterranean Royalty Cruise Line terminal, Armie has an epiphany.

He once told Timmy he can see him in his childhood and he had meant it. But Armie realizes that in his mind, Timmy’s also always been there when he’s old and Timmy’s old. They are talking by a fireplace, and when one of them starts to forget the details about their lives when they were young, the other one fills him in. He now sees that the fireplace has not been at a friend’s house or in a generic hotel lobby, and there have been no girlfriends or wives around. It’s been them, just them, and it’s been a fireplace at their own house.

“Move!”

Armie is jolted from his reverie by a swift poke at the back of his knee.

He turns around, realizes he’s still standing in the middle of the terminal and there’s a feisty old woman behind him, pushing him with her carry-on bag.

“Move, boy, move!”

Yes, move.

That’s what Armie needs to do.

Now that he realizes what a mistake he had made the night before, he needs to move and find Timmy, find him and tell him that he had been oh, so wrong; that it would never be too late for them, that yes, he wants Timmy to kiss him goodnight and he wants Timmy to kiss him goodnight every single night for the rest of his life. He would make amends and they would work through everything that they needed to work through and they would have their whole lives ahead of them into the old age and nothing would ever be too late for them.

Armie starts running.

He weaves between even the narrowest openings in the crowd, but the people and their suitcases move so haphazardly that it’s frustratingly slow, and when he finally gets out of the terminal, he sees Timmy getting into a car at the other end of the long line of taxi cabs.

“Timmy!” he yells at the top of his lungs, but people’s chatter and the noise from the vehicles drown out his voice and Timmy doesn’t hear him.

Armie sees the cab driver close the trunk with Timmy’s luggage inside, and then the cab and Timmy in it leave and quickly disappear into the sea of identical white cabs.

Thus, Armie’s Plan A—which was getting into a cab of his own and telling the driver to _follow that car!_—wouldn’t work anymore, but he knows where Timmy is going, so there’s still a Plan B. Timmy had a flight to New York out of Rome which means that Armie can still try and catch him before he boards his flight. Yes, Armie is going to chase him to the airport and all the way through it to the plane and New York if he needs to.

Armie jumps into the first available cab and takes all his luggage onto the back seat with him, because there’s no time for any maneuvering with the trunk now.

“To Fiumicino airport, and fast!” he yells at the driver, and then adds because he doesn’t want to be rude and the driver can’t possible know that this is a life-and-death situation: “Please, _per favore_.”

Turns out that if you tell an Italian cab driver to drive fast, he will, indeed, drive fast.

Really fast.

Armie holds onto his seat as the driver makes the one-hour trip from the port of Civitavecchia to the Fiumicino airport in forty minutes, yelling at anyone who tries to cut him on the freeway, and when they arrive at the airport, Armie shoves a stack of Euro bills to the driver from the back seat. It’s probably twice as much as what the trip actually cost, but Armie doesn’t care as he jumps out and rushes into the departure terminal.

He looks around and does a quick check: no Timmy, which means that he must have already gone past the security point.

Armie has seen enough movies to know how this works. He needs a ticket to get to the passenger side of the terminal and so he rushes to the check-in counter to ask for a ticket, any ticket, on the first flight to New York.

“And quick, please!”

The heavy-set Italian airline official behind the desk looks quizzical but says nothing except asks Armie for his credit card. Armie taps his knuckles on the desk, anxious, and after the third quiet ping of the man’s computer, he asks the guy if the process is still going to take long.

The man looks up and announces stoically: “Signor Hammer, I have located some tickets for you but the only seats we have available are in the first class.”

“Yes, one of those, then. And—,” Armie searches for the man’s name tag, “—Massimo, could you please hurry up?

He gets a nod and a promise: “Of course, sir.”

While they wait for the boarding pass to print, Massimo asks: ”_Una signora_?”

Armie looks up. Massimo winks at him and repeats his question. ”_Una signora?”_ A lady?

Armie shakes his head, thinks of Timmy, and despite the nerve-racking situation, a smile escapes. ”_No, un signore. Un signore bellissimo_,” he says in his best Italian. A beautiful gentleman.

”Ah!” Massimo says, pleased that he had been right about this being a matter of the heart for the American.

Finally, the computer is done printing, and Massimo takes Armie’s luggage in and hands him the boarding pass in return with a wide smile on his face.

“Here you go, sir.”

Armie grabs the boarding pass and starts running towards the security check while his new friend Massimo’s parting words echo behind him in broken English: ”Good luck!”

Armie finds the departure listings on the nearest screen and looks for flights to New York. It needs to be soon, because Timmy had needed to come here straight from the harbor. Armie checks the entire list of departures once, then goes over it again from the start, but there’s only one flight to New York, from Gate 24 by American Airlines and that’s at six in the evening.

Armie’s stomach drops when he realizes that Timmy had lied to him.

He hadn’t been in any hurry, he had just wanted to avoid spending the day with Armie.

Armie takes a deep breath and thinks that he probably deserved it. If Timmy feels even an ounce of what he feels for Timmy, then being around him and thinking the feelings weren’t requited would have been agony.

Armie steels himself and starts his search.

He speeds through the terminal peeking into every coffee shop and restaurant but doesn’t see Timmy in any of them. He checks the duty-free, Gate 24, and all the gates around it, but nothing. No sight of Timmy anywhere. He’s desperate enough to check the bathrooms, too, but no luck.

Armie starts to lose hope, but there’s still one place he hasn’t looked in yet: the American Airlines lounge. He storms in, impatiently waits for the attendant to scan his ticket at the desk and barges into the lounge as soon as the gate blinks green.

He takes a look around. The lounge is practically empty.

A businesswoman at her laptop here, two men quietly conversing by the window over there. Tables in the middle, all vacant. But in the back corner, amidst strewn-about belongings is a hunched shape with headphones hanging around his neck, sitting on a bench and looking at the screen of his phone deep in thought.

Armie lets out a long exhale.

Timmy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to make it so that Luca had originally stuck them on the boat because he’d been afraid that Armie would be a flight risk when things got difficult…but instead, what’s the first thing he does when he’s finally free: he still runs back to Timmy.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“So, the last task. Could we do it?”_

The panting and puffing are what Timmy hears first. It makes him look up from his phone and he’s surprised to see Armie standing there, all sweaty and cheeks red from the exertion.

“Armie?”

“I looked everywhere for you,” Armie gasps, drops onto the bench next to him, breathless in his relief.

“For me?”

“The McDonald’s, the bathrooms, the gates.”

“What was the hurry? My flight doesn’t leave until six.”

“I know that now,” Armie comments, sarcastic, now that his pulse is starting to level again.

Timmy scrunches his brow, and a smile takes over his face when he realizes what’s going on. After everything that had happened, after everything that they had agreed on, Armie had still run after him.

“Wait, did you just airport-chase me here?”

“That’s not a verb,” Armie huffs, suddenly embarrassed.

Timmy doesn’t care and his smile gets even wider. “Like, full on ran through the airport? Why didn’t you just call me?”

Armie doesn’t know. It hadn’t even occurred to him; the only thing in his mind had been that he needed to see Timmy, talk to him, and then—he wasn’t sure what.

“I mean, why are you here?” Timmy prods, seems to know why he’s come but wants the confirmation.

“I just thought that—"

Armie scrambles for an explanation, overwhelmed by the fact that Timmy is so happy to see him and maybe this means that he still has a chance to fix everything. He wants tell Timmy everything he thought about at the terminal and on the cab ride over: about how stupid he has been, not just yesterday or on this trip but for all these years, and he wants to tell him about the fireplace and about imagining them old and together, but it’s all so much that he can’t decide where to even start. So he starts where they left off.

”I mean, we still have the last task left. I know we decided not to do it, but Luca’s going to ask if we did the whole thing like he told us to, and you know how he gets if he doesn’t get his way—”

Timmy bites his lip, confused. “Right. The task.”

Armie reaches over, squeezes his arm and is about to tell him that at least they could start with that and see where it would take them, when he notices the phone in Timmy’s hand. There’s a string of text message notifications lighting up the screen.

“Unless you were in the middle of something? Is something wrong?” Armie asks and a cold dread washes through him. He shouldn’t have expected to be able to just show up and assume that it would miraculously make it all okay .

“No, nothing’s wrong. I was just texting someone.”

“Who?”

Timmy raises his eyebrows. _Do you really need to ask?_

“Oh. Her.” Armie straightens his posture, braces himself. He had told Timmy to go home to his girlfriend and to forget about him, but now he desperately wants to take it all back. “What was it about? That you’re finally coming home?”

“Isn’t that what you told me to do?”

“Yes, but—"

“No, I didn’t text her that I was coming back. I mean, that too. Sort of. But not really.” Timmy hems and haws, then admits: “I had to tell her that we have to stop doing whatever it is that we were doing. She doesn’t agree, though. And I know Lena isn’t going to be happy, either.”

“Why did you do it, then?”

“Because what’s the point.” Timmy shrugs, inhales sharply and blurts: “Because what’s the point of even trying with her, when I’m in love with someone else.”

Armie’s throat constricts at that word. They have never used it with each other before, not even by accident, not even by hinting at it. It has always been about knowing everything about each other, caring, wanting, missing each other, but never that word. He should say something, ask what Timmy means—but what if he heard him wrong, how can he just say it like that, so unceremoniously like it’s the most natural thing in the world, or what if it isn’t even Armie who—

“—so should we get to it?” Timmy’s words bring him back.

“What?”

“The last task that you came here for. Four minutes of looking into each other’s eyes.”

Armie clears his throat, tries to concentrate. “Yes. Sure.”

Timmy takes off his headphones from around his neck and shuffles to pull one leg under him as he positions to sit facing Armie on the bench. “Will you set the time?”

“Sure.” Armie pulls out his phone and reminds Timmy that the official rules of the task call for four minutes of uninterrupted eye contact, no talking, no nothing. “I want to be able to tell Luca that we did this.”

“Yes, yes, I get it!” Timmy rolls his eyes.

Armie pushes up his sleeves, sets the countdown on his phone’s timer to four minutes, and places the phone on the seat next to him.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Ready.”

Armie taps the icon on the phone. “Go.”

As the seconds start running on the screen, he lifts his gaze to look into Timmy’s eyes that are first shrouded by a curl on his forehead, but then Timmy shoves it behind his ear and here they are, looking into each other’s eyes.

The blatant, no-hiding-from-this gaze feels awkward for a fleeting moment, before it settles into the most natural thing in the world. These eyes are the ones that had always supported Armie, always watched him with pride, adoration, and understanding even through his lowest moments and sometimes coaxing him out of his darkest ones. Their everchanging but always steady shade of green was one of Armie’s favorite things about Timmy, only matched by the soft give of his lips, and his lips are right there, in the corner of Armie’s vision, but he was supposed to strictly keep his eyes on Timmy’s, right? No peeking elsewhere.

_Armand Douglas Hammer, concentrate, _he scolds himself.

But he knows that the lips are still right there, the flushed pink of them, and Armie remembers how he likes not only the wonderful, convoluted words that come from between them but also the feeling of them on his, likes the feeling of Timmy’s lips tracing the contours of his face, traveling over his neck. Likes the way they pressed into the corner of his mouth only four days ago, before everything went to shit.

He and Timmy had worked things out the night before, but not really; even after their talk, things were not going to be the way they used to be, and now Timmy thinks that Armie thinks that it’s too late, when all he really wants is to start again, start all of it again, and do it differently, start from the itchy, green lawn of that old Italian house where he first kissed him and do it all differently this time.

And so that’s it.

Armie can’t take it anymore.

_Fuck the four minutes, _he thinks and slams pause on the countdown on his phone, grabs Timmy by the back of his neck and kisses him, really kisses him, and he’s relieved to find how the kid—yes, he’s always going to call him kid no matter how old either of them are—immediately goes soft and yielding in Armie’s hands. Timmy smiles into the kiss, relieved too, and it’s first triumphant, but then the kisses grow gradually more and more tender, and everything happens in bright daylight and everyone is stark sober and secret-free.

Between the kisses, Timmy mumbles: “I was starting to get afraid that you’d never get to this.”

Armie stops to catch his breath. “Get to what?”

“Kissing me.”

“You were expecting it?” Armie asks and places a kiss on his throat, then another.

Timmy stretches his neck, pleased. “Ever since you showed up here in total romantic comedy mode, I figured you’d changed your mind. But then I started to think that maybe it’s too late, that you would’ve done it already if that was why you were here.”

Armie laughs into his ear and then resumes kissing him on the mouth. “For us, it’s never too late. Never.”

After, Armie hums, pressing his forehead against Timmy’s. “So you’re in love with me?”

He expects Timmy to play it down, deflect like he himself would do, but Timmy looks up at him without any pretense and asks, eyes honest and happy: “Yes. Who else?”

“I don’t know. Massimo, maybe?” Armie jokes, lightheaded with relief.

“Who?”

“Never mind.”

Timmy chuckles to himself, fingers playing with Armie’s collar and says: “There’s still ten seconds left, by the way.”

Dazed with happiness at the sight of the face looking up at him, Armie can barely understand Timmy’s words. “What?”

Timmy points at the phone. “Of the four minutes of the task. We still have ten seconds to go.”

The paused countdown blinks on the screen.

“You did want to finish, right?” Timmy asks softly.

Armie shakes his head, laughs.

“Yes, yes I did. For Luca. He’s going to get a kick out of all of this, by the way. I bet he had no idea it would lead to this when he booked us on that boat. He sent his actors here to become friends again and what did he get instead? Two people head over heels in love.”

“Two? Both of them?”

Armie watches the sparkle in Timmy’s eyes as he confirms tenderly: “Both of them. One of them just took longer to realize that that’s all that matters.” He brushes Timmy’s cheek but brings them back to earth before it gets too sappy. “So, ten seconds, you say?”

Armie reaches for his phone, finger already on the countdown when Timmy stops him.

“No need.”

He places his hand in Armie’s, looks Armie in the eye and starts to count. “Ready?”

“One.”

“Two.”

Obediently, Armie keeps his eyes on Timmy’s but they crinkle in the corners in the way he had almost forgotten and Timmy is smiling wide, that smile that Armie had once upon a time seen very often. The smile that was pure hope and had no trace of the complications that had come after.

“Three.”

“Four.”

Timmy lifts his hand and grazes the side of Armie’s neck, caresses Armie’s cheekbone with his thumb.

“Five.”

“Six.”

“Seven.”

His eyes stay on Armie’s but his thumb sweeps over Armie’s bottom lip, pulls to part his lips. Armie wishes the seconds would go faster.

“Eight.”

“Nine.”

Armie’s heart is just about to burst when Timmy finally announces, so close to Armie’s lips that no one else but them can hear it:

“Ten.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't believe we're here already. See you on Friday for a short little epilogue including a time jump <3 
> 
> (Chapter 16 will be the bonus ending.)


	15. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Next to yours._

_February, two years later_

_Somewhere in California_

Armie finds Timmy sitting in their bedroom, stroking the pink and green hibiscuses printed on the shirt laying on the bed.

“Is that what you’re going to wear tonight?” Armie asks.

“Yes. Under the suit that you saw at the fitting.”

“But isn’t that the—“

“Yes. I told him I wanted it to be a part of the outfit and even if it isn’t his, he agreed to design everything around it anyway.”

“Does he know why?”

“No.” Timmy’s smile is sheepish when he gets up, slides his arms around Armie’s waist soothingly. “So don’t worry, I didn’t tell him any details of that night. I just told him it was important to me and that I didn’t care if it would clash with the Academy’s red carpet.”

“You mean, you didn’t tell him that the shirt that you wore when we first had sex, is the one that you want to wear tonight, when you’re going to pick up your first Osc—?”

“No, no, no, don’t say that! You’ll jinx it!” Timmy pulls away in an instant and folds over, horrified, to cover his ears.

He’s been a nervous wreck for weeks so Armie doesn’t push him, even if he wants to say that at this point, there’s nothing that could jinx it. The votes have been counted and the envelopes sealed and Timmy has been the clear frontrunner throughout the awards season.

“Fine, you superstitious fool,” Armie says and adds in a placating sing-songy voice: “—no one knows what’s going to happen. Any of you five could win.”

“Thank you.”

Timmy lets go of his ears and comes back to Armie, who adds: “But only one of you is sentimental enough to wear an old shirt instead of a brand-new designer one.”

“I mean, it is an old designer shirt, still,” Timmy grins as his cheek burrows into Armie’s chest. “You know, I remember putting it on that night and, I don’t know, having this outrageous hope that you would be the one to take it off later.”

“Didn’t turn out to be that outrageous after all.”

“No.”

“I hope you had it dry-cleaned after, though.”

“Armie!” Timmy tries to swat him but Armie stops him and takes hold of his hand, trails kisses all the way up to his elbow until the doorbell rings and Timmy tenses up.

“They are here.”

Mentally preparing for a horde of hairstylists, make-up artists, managers, and luckily, friends, Armie sighs. “Let the day begin.”

“Good morning.”

It’s closer to noon when Timmy stirs next to Armie the next morning and Armie can see the moment when he’s awake enough to remember everything from the night before.

He smiles, hair sticking up even wilder than usual due to the extra amount of product in it and his first words are: “Can you believe it?”

Armie returns his smile. “I can.”

“Have you been up for long?”

“A little while. Just reading the news.”

Timmy scoots closer under the covers and reads out loud from Armie’s device over his shoulder: “_Armie Hammer breaks press protocol and barges backstage at the Oscars to kiss his boyfriend_.”

“I sure did and would do it again,” Armie grins.

“Is it all over the news?”

“Pretty much. Your win, that is. ‘_The one thing The Academy got right last night.’ ‘After four nominations, Chalamet gets his Oscar.’ ‘Finally it’s the Night of Timothée’,_” Armie lists the headlines for him, proud.

Timmy’s chin rests on his shoulder and Armie feels him shake his head as his curls brush on Armie’s cheek. He likes the roles that let Timmy keep them.

“I still can’t believe it. And the Oscar really is heavy, like everyone says. People don’t just make that up in their speeches.”

“I know. So you’re not going to pack it with you for New York? I’d kind of like to see the faces of the TSA people tonight when they scan our carry-ons.”

“Very funny. No, I think we’ll leave it here. New York already has its fair share of my awards.”

“Showoff,” Armie pokes Timmy and he first folds over with a laugh and then curls over Armie’s bare legs, boyishly rubbing his cheek on Armie’s thigh. Armie pushes his fingers gently in his hair and reminds him: “But they are at your mom’s, not at our place.”

“Still.” Timmy looks up at him, eyes twinkling tender behind the lashes and it’s been almost two years but Armie still can’t sometimes believe his luck.

“Where’s the precious piece of gold now, by the way? Did you lose it already?” he has to tease before his chest will burst with love for this crazy, messy, brilliant kid.

“Oh, come on! No, I put it on the mantel of the fireplace when we got home,” Timmy says and kisses him as he climbs over him to get out of bed and make coffee. “Where it belongs. Next to yours.”

_— The End —_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading and commenting and generally coming along for this journey! 
> 
> These little epilogue scenes were really supposed to be The Ending for this story, and a draft of this chapter even existed before the rest of the story did. But as promised, I now also have an alternate ending to this, and will post it as an additional Chapter 16 on Monday. I hope you’ll return here one more time then to see the alternate fun, fluffy path to their happily ever after :)


	16. Alternate Ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bonus chapter. 
> 
> It contains an alternate ending that picks up from where the story left off at the end of Chapter 12: It’s the last night on the ship and Armie leaves Timmy’s cabin after their final talk. Both of them are heartbroken after Armie has come to the conclusion that it’s all too late for them now.

“I’ll see you on location. Good night.”

With that, Armie leaves Timmy’s room and presses the door close behind him; slumps against it, heart in pieces.

The ship’s hallways are long and silent. It’s late, but the thought of returning to his own, empty cabin feels crushing, so Armie takes the elevator up to the top deck and does what he does best: heads for the bar.

The place is almost deserted, but still open. Maybe it’s always open for lost souls like him. There’s only one bartender, a young man with dark hair that’s short on the sides but poufy on top, and he signals to Armie.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” he calls to him in accented English. So far, most of the crew have been Spanish or Moroccan, but Armie thinks he detects a hint of Italian here.

The bartender returns to talking quietly with the only other customer there: a scraggly old man who, to be honest, looks even worse than Armie feels. Armie watches them mindlessly, wonders what the other man’s issues might be and thinks that they can’t possibly be worse than his. Thinks about Timmy, all the years they wasted, and how different things could be if he hadn’t screwed everything up almost nine years ago. If only he’d spoken up or at least allowed Timmy, for better or worse, to make his own decisions, then they might have never lost touch. They never would have ended up on this godforsaken boat, and Armie wouldn’t have to try to drown his sorrows in a drink that he hasn’t even managed to order yet.

Armie fiddles with the coasters someone’s left on the counter: all providing sunny anecdotes, all highly discordant with his mood. _Create your own sunshine._ Or the equally encouraging, _Make every day count_. Or,_ The chances of you being born are 1 in 400 trillion. Act like the miracle you are. _

Armie wants to shred them all_._

The bartender finally pours another drink for the other customer and pats the man encouragingly on the shoulder before striding over to Armie. He gives Armie a long look and seems to like what he sees, as he leans over the counter, coquettish.

“Good evening. What can I get you, sir?”

“A whiskey, please. On the rocks.”

“Got it.” The man spins around to get a bottle of Macallan from the high shelf and asks over his shoulder: “And while I fix you the drink, you can tell me what’s wrong.”

Armie is taken by surprise at first, but then realizes that it goes with the profession. The man surely asks everyone the same question, especially the customers who enter the bar this late and this alone. Bartender 101.

“Do I look like something’s wrong?”

The man rattles ice cubes into a glass and follows them up with the whiskey. He whirls the drink once before sliding it over to Armie. “Well, you look less _eccitato, _excited, to be on this boat than most of the people I see here.”

His round, brown eyes look at Armie intently, as if he sees to Armie’s soul and knows exactly what he’s thinking about, so after taking a throat-burning swig of his whiskey, Armie has to ask. Just to be sure. “Um, we haven’t met before, have we?”

The bartender smiles. “Was that a pick-up line? Because you would totally be my type, but I don’t do married men,” he points at Armie’s ring.

Armie looks at his hand. He really should take the ring off.

“Oh. No, I just thought you looked familiar, I wasn’t trying to…anything. No offense. You’re obviously very handsome,” he adds when the man makes an exaggerated sad face.

“None taken. And thank you,” the man laughs. The mock disappointment goes away as quickly as it had appeared. He picks up a cocktail glass from the sink and starts to dry it up with a dish towel. “So, you didn’t tell me yet. What’s wrong?”

For a second, Armie considers telling him everything—he’s never going to see the young man again, after all—but then decides against it. “Oh, just regrets.”

“You’ve made a mistake? Or didn’t take a chance you should have?“

“Both, I guess.”

“Hmm. But could you go back and fix things?”

Armie shakes his head. “It doesn’t make sense to try and fix it anymore. It should have been fixed a long time ago. I should have done things so differently. But, what can you do, right?”

“What can I do?” the bartender asks in his broken English.

“No, I meant—that’s just a saying, ‘_what can you do_’. It means that there’s nothing anyone can do at this point. We can’t go back in time.”

The bartender places the dry glass on the shelf and picks up another. “That would fix things for you? Going back in time?”

Armie attempts a smile. The young man is just trying to be nice with his suggestion, after all.

“I don’t know. But it would give me a chance to try. To do things differently. If only I could go back to the moment when it all started to go—” Armie shakes his head. “—where I took the wrong path. But, life doesn’t work that way. Gotta live with my decisions now.”

Armie drinks up his whiskey and looks pensively at the last little golden drop that spreads at the bottom of the glass. A long time ago, he had promised to teach Timmy to drink whiskey instead of his rum and cokes. To appreciate a good one, to tell the smoky flavors apart from the malty ones. They had never gotten around to it. Armie places the empty glass on the bar.

The bartender nods at the finished drink. “Would you like another one?”

Armie shrugs. “Sure. Get me another round.”

The bartender is about to grab the Macallan, when he stops. “Any chance I could get you to try my special cocktail instead? People rave about it. It’s my secret concubine.”

Armie tries to hide his amusement. “You mean your secret concoction?”

“Yes, con-coc-tion,” the bartender repeats, attempting to pronounce the syllables the way Armie did. “I put Campari and whiskey in it, and a couple of other things along with a mystery ingredient that I won’t reveal, because otherwise it wouldn’t be my secret recipe, now would it.”

Armie could really use another whiskey, but the bartender’s so passionate about his cocktail that Armie humors him and gives in. At least he could make one person happy tonight. “Whatever you say. Hit me.”

He watches the man make the drink, watches him pour the Campari, add a dash of whiskey and a few drops of something else that could have been vermouth, but he did it so fast that Armie didn’t catch it. He mixes in a few orange peels and pours a shot of clear liquid from an unmarked bottle to the top at the end.

He presents the scarlet-colored drink to Armie proudly. “Here you go. I call it _Chronos with a Twist_. Excellent for regrets.”

“I bet.”

Armie picks up the glass and takes a sip. It’s a stiff drink. The bartender keeps close watch on him, waiting for Armie to give his verdict on the taste.

“It’s good,” he says politely as he smacks his lips. “The aftertaste is a little bitter, but I like it.”

“And it only gets better as you keep drinking.”

“Don’t they all?”

They both laugh and the bartender takes the unmarked bottle, puts it back in the bottom cabinet and locks the door.

“So, you want to talk more about those regrets, sir? Matters of the heart, perhaps?”

“Yes, but I’d rather not get into it.” Armie swallows another gulp. The whiskey had done nothing to erase the horrible gnawing in his gut, but this one is better at taking the edge off. “Let’s talk about you instead. You like your job here? Doesn’t it get tiresome, listening to people’s problems day in, day out?”

“Ah, you get used to it. Besides, it gives me a window to people’s souls. And this is only temporary anyway.”

“Really?”

“I’m only doing this for two more months, and then I’ll have enough money to start making my first film.”

“You make films?” Armie asks, intrigued for the first time during their discussion.

“No, not yet. But I want to. So I have to start somewhere, you see, and try. You know, to not have regrets.”

“Touché.”

“The only thing I need right now is money. I have a fantastic script, but no one believes in the idea.”

“What is it about?”

“About two English schoolboys who commit a murder.”

“Oh, really? A thriller?” Given the gentle-mannered nature of the man, that wouldn’t have been Armie’s first guess.

“No, it will be more of a fake documentary. And I want to shoot it in London.” The bartender’s eyes light up. “I already have the actors and just need the money. I do all the extra shifts the manager gives me here, but once I make it out of this ship and become a success, I’ll never return. I already have my eye on a building in Milan where I want to live. Or maybe in Paris.”

Armie smiles. If only it was that easy.

“It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out,” he says, however, and swallows what’s left of the bartender’s special. It went down very quick and smooth after the first wince. “Okay, I appreciate the counsel and the drinks, but I think I’ll head to bed now.”

Armie takes out his wallet and pays for his drinks; decides to add an extra-large tip. “Good luck with your film.” He wants to add that maybe they’ll end up working together one day, but if the bartender hasn’t recognized him by then, he’d rather keep it that way.

The man gathers the Euro bills from the counter, winks at Armie and wishes him good night.

“And good luck with those regrets, whatever they are. Who knows, maybe you get a chance to fix things.”

Armie smiles sadly. “Thanks, but I don’t think there’ll be any more chances with this one.”

“You never know. And if you do get a second chance, don’t screw it up. Promise?”

“Fine. I promise.” 

And with that and one last wave from the door, Armie leaves the bar.

He wakes up to his alarm. The buzzing fills the room, pierces his ears and he doesn’t remember it having been this loud on the previous mornings.

He pats around the nightstand blindly to turn it off; one of the swats thankfully hits the right button and the horrific sound ends.

How can it already be morning again?

Armie doesn’t want to open his eyes, knowing that once he does, he’ll have to face his decisions from last night. He had decided to put off packing until the morning because he was too exhausted and devastated to tackle it at night, but now the ship’s going to dock at Civitavecchia any minute and he and his luggage should be ready to leave the ship. The last thing he wants is to get locked into another round of ten days on the sea.

The harsher decision from last night, the one about Timmy, returns to him, too. Armie had hoped that the sleep would’ve erased the image from his mind—Timmy standing in his cabin, asking to kiss him one last time—but the night’s sleep was restless and if anything, the image has distilled into a torturously clear memory.

Eyes only half-open, he reaches for the remote on the side table to put the ship’s morning programming on to distract himself—but there’s no side table, and his hand hits a wall instead. Where did the nightstand go? Surely he wasn’t so drunk last night that he would have started moving the furniture around before going to bed?

Armie tries the other side of the bed and there’s a nightstand, yes, but next to the built-in alarm clock there’s no tv remote. The ship’s laminated safety and evacuation instructions aren’t there either. Instead, he finds a hand-written note.

Has someone been in here?

Armie looks around and his mouth opens—and closes. There’s no tv on the wall either, to match the missing remote. Instead, there’s a large window and he can make out the outlines of palm trees and patio furniture behind the sheer curtains. And instead of the cabin, he’s in a room that resembles the bedroom they had in their house, in the old house, before he moved out.

What’s going on? And where is all his luggage? Exactly how much did he drink last night?

Armie grabs the note from the nightstand: “_Have fun tonight and say hi to Timmy for me. Your suit will be here at three. If everything in Dallas goes as planned, the kids and I will be back on Wednesday. Maybe we can talk on Thursday?”_

The letters look like his soon-to-be ex-wife’s handwriting and Armie doesn’t understand anything anymore.

He gets up to check his phone, because he needs to call someone to ask about all of this, but he doesn’t recognize the device that’s on the desk. Whoever was in here, must have stolen his and replaced it with this one, because this is a much older model with a broken case; in fact, it looks exactly like the one he remembers having himself back when—

Oh.

It can’t be.

It couldn’t.

Armie’s mind reels as he, with shaking hands, checks the time and date from the phone.

It’s Sunday in November 2018, and there’s a reminder on the screen that he has an award show to attend at the Beverly Hilton in the evening.

Armie runs to the bathroom, looks in the mirror, and sees none of the wrinkles around his eyes that his make-up artists have struggled with for the past year or two. How is this possible? Where is the ship, the cabin—and oh god, Timmy? Why is Armie here, in his old house in California and why does it seem to be 2018?

Armie closes the lid on the toilet and sits on it, rubs his face. Trying to retrace his steps, he remembers fighting with Timmy, coming to a conclusion that they had wasted so many years that it was too late to try anything now, then he had gone to the bar where that Italian bartender had talked to him about second chances.

Did he dream all that? Or is this, now, a dream? Maybe the bartender drugged him and this is the world’s worst hangover.

Armie opens the bathroom cabinet, searches around for his reading glasses and curses when he can’t find them, until he realizes that he can read the small print on the pill bottles even without the glasses. He finds the painkiller bottle easily and wonders why they even prescribed those glasses to him three years earlier. His vision seems to be perfect.

Taking his old phone with him, Armie walks to the kitchen to make coffee. Maybe that’ll clear his head, along with the two painkillers he already took.

The rich aroma begins to fill the kitchen and he’s scrolling through his list of contacts, trying to figure out who to call to demand an explanation, when he gets a text message.

It’s from Timmy.

Armie’s heart speeds up as he taps the screen to open the message. Has Timmy, after sleeping on it, decided that he wants to talk to Armie again? Maybe try to get him to rethink his decision?

No.

It’s a quick mirror photo of Timmy in a designer outfit, the one he had worn that night at the Beverly Hilton. Armie remembers having received that same photo all those years ago; it had been typical of Timmy to send him excited pictures as he was trying his clothes on earlier in the day. He would always beg Armie to do the same, but Armie had felt silly taking pictures of his suits and had rarely responded. Besides, that way he could be there in person to see the look in Timmy’s eyes the moment he first saw Armie.

Armie remembers that last time, Timmy had sent that photo, waited until Armie had seen the message and followed up with a coy, “_Do you like it…?”_ Those texts had been some of the last ones they had ever sent and Armie had gone back to them later, just to stare at them and then close them.

A minute later the same question arrives again.

_Do you like it…?_

Armie stares at his phone and doesn’t know why he knows these things. The dream, with the ship and the questions and the break-up seemed so real, but how is it possible? He looks at Timmy’s text and wonders if he should reply with the same fire emojis as last time or—

His heart jumps.

Or.

Or.

He could do something different.

He jumps off the kitchen stool, almost knocking the coffee mug off the counter, and starts pacing. If he knows these things that are going to happen, then that means that they are going to go to the Beverly Hilton tonight, and he’ll present Timmy with his award, and after, they’ll escape upstairs to the suite and Lena will walk in on them, unless—

Okay. Okay. He needs time to think.

He buys more time by replying to Timmy the same way he did last time, and his three fire emojis earn him a face with stuck-out tongue emoji in response, along with a request to see what Armie will be wearing. Just like last time.

Armie doesn’t know what this is, but he had been praying for a second chance, and now that it seems that he’s somehow back in the past, he’s not going to waste this.

With determination rushing over him, he runs into the shower and as he soaps himself up under the warm water, he hatches a plan.

In the afternoon, Armie makes some calls. After a perky assistant from Tom Ford brings his outfit for the evening, he gets dressed and ties his bowtie. The car arrives at five.

“To the Sunset Tower first, please. We’re picking someone up.”

Timmy is waiting outside his hotel, on the curb just like last time, and his eyes light up when Armie rolls down the window and tells him to get in. He hops effortlessly onto the backseat, almost landing in Armie’s lap. Armie’s heart melts as he sees Timmy carefree and happy to see him, not heartbroken and sad because of everything Armie had done.

He pats Timmy’s knee as they start driving down Sunset Boulevard, lets his hand rest there a little longer and Timmy glances at the hand, then at Armie’s face, and smiles.

Armie smiles in return but pulls his hand away, runs it through his hair. All he wants is to stop the car and hold Timmy, but he can’t do that yet; he needs to remember not to mess with the succession of events until it’s time. He needs to let things unfold as they did, needs to let Timmy grab him by the arm every chance he gets, let him place his hand on Armie’s thigh under the table, let Timmy borrow his vape pen. Let Timmy invite him up to the suite when the show is over.

And sure enough, when the awards have been handed out and cameras are turned off, Timmy grabs Armie by the arm and reaches up to him. People around them have gotten up too, everyone shuffling about and enquiring where the best afterparties are.

“Do you want to escape this? My team has a suite upstairs,” Timmy whispers in Armie’s ear, just like last time, and Armie takes a pause, knows distinctively where a yes would lead. To estrangement, loneliness, and broken hearts.

And so, instead of a yes, he says:

“I actually have a room here too, I booked it this afternoon. Why don't we go there? That way we won’t have to worry about anyone disturbing us.”

Timmy tilts his head and smiles, surprised. “You booked a room? Why?”

Armie grins back and starts to head for the exit. “Are you coming or not?”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” Timmy scrambles after him.

In the elevator, Armie feels a head rush as he presses the button for the fifth floor instead of the penthouse.

The room on the fifth floor is smaller than the suite had been and there’s no separate bedroom here, but Timmy still pulls Armie to him, and he, again, is the first to actually kiss Timmy. It’s all familiar, and just as Armie remembers.

The bowtie comes off and his jacket comes off and Timmy’s ‘_I can’t go this long without seeing you_’ and ‘_I need more of you_’ are met in kind with Armie’s confessions of wanting him too. In a feverish plea to get closer to him, Timmy has just given Armie the permission to get rid of his clothing—“_you can take them off_”—when Armie recognizes the moment where things had last time been cut off by Lena.

He slows down, but there are no sounds of heels approaching them; no one else in the room but them, and the memory of the harsh interruption is replaced by the reassurance of Timmy’s warm mouth on Armie’s.

“You can take them all off,” Timmy repeats, breathless and unaware that anything should be any different from how it is.

Armie pulls away to hold Timmy's face. After tracing their old steps all day and all evening, he’s reached a point where he doesn't know anymore what comes next. If he’s really managed to change their future—or is it past?—it means that it’s all up to them now, no precedent, no mistakes, nothing but a new path they can forge for themselves. This time, together.

And he tells Timmy that there’s nothing he would like more than to take him to the bed right then and there, but that they need to talk first.

Timmy doesn’t know what he means and tries to surge up to kiss him again, but Armie holds him down.

“I swear, I will kiss you again in a minute, but I need to tell you something first.”

“Okay?” Timmy concedes and sits on the bed. Armie rushes to sit next to him; takes his hand, kisses the wrist, the palm.

“It’s nothing bad. I just— I’ve thought about things a lot. A lot. Years, one could even say,” he chuckles awkwardly. “And like I said, I do want you. So much. But I don’t mean just for tonight. I mean for all nights. And days. And weekends. And everything in between.”

He pauses; waits to see if Timmy looks startled or scared because of his confession, but all he can detect is relief and happiness, so he continues.

“But I’m also aware of the fact that if we become—more, and publicly, then it might screw up our careers. And Tim, you have what it takes to make it, really make it big time. I know that, and I know that you want that. But if we do this, us, it could very likely mess all that up for you. Maybe for a while, maybe permanently.”

“For me? What about you?” Timmy asks. “What about your career?”

“I don’t care. I would be happy doing regional theater if it meant having you to come home to. So it would be worth it for me. But only if you think so, too. The last thing I want to do is to take your dreams away from you, but I needed to tell you how I felt because we’re in this together.”

_The bartender would be so proud of him._

Timmy watches him in disbelief and squeezes his hand tighter. “I care more about you than any fucking careers. You wouldn’t be taking my dreams away from me, Armie. You—you are my dream.” Timmy blushes and cringes. “Sorry, that was cheesy. Go ahead, make fun of me.”

With a swelling heart, Armie kisses the reddened top of his cheek and lingers. “I would never make fun of that. It’s the best thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Timmy looks up at him from under his lashes. He inspects Armie’s face and then reaches up to muss Armie’s hair.

“I don’t know who you are and what you’ve done with Armie, but I like it.” Then his forehead wrinkles in concern. “But what about your family?”

Armie pulls away, holds Timmy’s hands again. “They’ll always be my kids, obviously, but I don’t think there’s been a marriage for a while now. So I’m afraid that that part of the family is already gone. We haven’t talked about it yet so I’ll have to do that before—”

“I’ll wait.”

Timmy didn’t even have to think about it and Armie looks at their hands, intertwined. The long, elegant, piano-playing, New York-pale fingers between his tanned Californian ones. He swallows. “You. You’re way too good for—"

“Hey, hey…” Timmy presses his forehead against Armie’s. “What is it?”

“Nothing, it’s just— You don’t know what I’ve done. Or thought I’d done. Or was about to do. I don’t know which one it is.”

“You’re not making any sense. But,” Timmy makes Armie look up at him, “—I know most of what you’ve done and the things I don’t, I’m sure you still meant well.”

Armie tries his best to blink back the tears. He thinks he’s been successful at it until Timmy pats the corner of his eye with his thumb.

“I honestly don’t deserve you.”

“Now, see that,” Timmy teases him, “—that I know. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure that you’ll make it up to me, one way or another.”

“I bet you will.” Armie’s lips curve into a smile as Timmy leans in and bumps his head on Armie’s shoulder, playful. “And I don't know how exactly we're going to do all this, but we will. I'm not letting you go again.”

Timmy pulls back. “Again?”

Armie just shakes his head and folds Timmy into a tight embrace. "Now. I meant now. I’m not letting you go now."

“Good,” Timmy says quietly, words muffled by Armie’s shirt. “I don’t want to be let go.”

As he burrows into Armie’s chest, Armie kisses the top of his head, his temple, his ear and by the time his lips taste the skin on Timmy’s neck, he remembers that there was another thing on the list for tonight besides the talk.

He bites gently on Timmy’s jaw, kisses the same spot and then asks, nose brushing against Timmy’s: “So, where were we? Before the talk?”

Timmy’s eyes look into his with no distance between them. “I believe you were about to take off my clothes.”

“Off, off, off…”

Armie doesn’t waste any time and soon Timmy’s jacket, shirt, pants are all gone and strewn across the hotel room floor.

Timmy giggles. “You’re fast.”

“I’ve had practice,” Armie responds as he crouches to pull of the last colorful sock and flies it across the room. When Timmy looks confused, Armie gets up and pulls him close by his waist. “You know. In my several dreams of this.”

He lets Timmy surge up to kiss him now, excited and trusting and in nothing but his underwear, and as Armie’s hands sweep across the bare skin on his waist, back, shoulders, he realizes how much more crossing this last line between them means to him now that they are doing it on purpose and not because of tequila.

“Okay, my turn,” he breaths into Timmy’s mouth and kneels to take off his own shoes but Timmy stops him, clutches his hand with his eyes locked into Armie’s. “No. Do all of me first, please.”

Armie nods and hooks his thumbs in the waistband of Timmy’s underwear instead. “Anything you want.”

Three minutes later, Timmy lies on the bed and leans back on his elbows, naked as per his own request and hard because of the first strokes that Armie hadn’t been able to resist when he’d been on his knees in front of Timmy.

Armie takes his turn—and time—at undressing and doesn’t know which one of them is enjoying the show more, Timmy who’s keenly watching him from the bed, or him, knowing that the glorious slim body he can’t take his eyes off of is just waiting for him.

As his second to last item, Armie pulls off his boxers, lays them on the chair next to the bed along with the rest of his clothes and glances at his hand. With one swift move, he takes his ring off and slips it into the pocket of his pants.

Armie remembers how in the dream they had been playful, intoxicated with not just the Hawaiian drinks but the surprise of it all.

This is different.

They both know what’s going to happen and when Armie joins Timmy on the bed, he runs a finger along his nose, kisses him on the lips. Looks at Timmy like he’s a veritable miracle, and that’s what he is. That’s what this whole night is. Armie remembers how he’d promised the bartender that he would not mess up a second chance and he knows it was just a dream, but he wishes nevertheless that he would be able to thank him.

“Hey, where did you go?” Timmy laughs and shakes him by the shoulder.

Armie blinks, coming back to reality. “Nowhere. I’m right here.”

“Yes you are. Finally,” Timmy sighs as he drapes himself over Armie’s body and kisses his shoulder. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”

His lips kiss Armie’s arm, elbow.

“I can’t believe you’re real. What even are the chances of you being born?” he mumbles as he works his way back up to Armie’s neck, nose making feather-light contact with the skin along the way.

“One in 400 trillion. Same odds as you being born and being here, in bed, with me, right now.” Armie slides his palm down Timmy’s back, cups one of his buttocks easily and pulls him tighter against him. By the feel of Timmy’s cock filling up against his stomach he knows this exploration can’t last much longer without turning into more.

Timmy seems to know it too, as he gently rubs himself against Armie, burying his face in Armie’s neck. “One in 400 trillion?” he asks absent-minded, focusing more on tracing Armie’s earlobe with the tip of his tongue.

“Yes, I…read it somewhere.” Armie gets a flashback of the coaster at the ship’s bar, but it couldn’t possibly be, could it? He must have heard it elsewhere. He shakes himself out of it and flips Timmy onto his back.

It’s Timmy’s idea.

It comes after Armie’s gotten to take his cock in his mouth, full and heavy—and oh, it’s even better than in the dream—and has licked and sucked him to the verge of it being too much. It would take only very little to push him over the edge now, but Timmy scrambles for Armie to slow down.

“Stop-stop-stop,” he breathes and holds Armie by a fistful of his hair to keep him in place. “I don’t want to come like this. Would you— I want you inside me.”

Armie stops. This effectively being their first time, he wouldn’t have expected them to go that far yet, but he finds his cock in quick agreement with Timmy’s suggestion. The sheets are damp where it has already been leaking and it’s getting rock hard at the prospect of—

Still, Armie has to ask. He pulls off of Timmy, replacing the slide of his mouth with the steady hold of his palm. “Have you done it before?”

“No. Or yes. Once, but it was years ago. And that was just— I mean, you know what it was. I’ve told you. So basically no. Oh wait, have you? With a man? You’ve never said anything.”

“No.” Armie shakes his head. “But how hard can it be, right?”

“You’re so dumb,” Timmy says and stretches his neck to look down at Armie who’s grinning as he shuffles to move into a better position between Timmy’s legs. “You’re lucky I happen to love you, so you can get away with saying stuff like th— Ohh—”

Wasting no time, Armie was already circling him with one finger, about to see how Timmy would feel if he pressed it inside him, but Timmy’s words make him stop. Timmy doesn’t seem to realize what he’s said, but Armie’s not going to say this for the first time with his finger inside him.

“Why did you stop?” Timmy is frustrated when Armie lets go of him, and confused when he crawls to the top of the bed to kiss him.

“I love you too.”

“What?”

“Did you not notice what you said?”

“I— No. Sorry, I didn’t mean to say it so soon. But I do. So much.” He reaches up to Armie’s lips, but he’s dizzy and misses; the kiss lands wet on the corner of Armie’s mouth instead. Timmy’s head falls back onto the pillow. “But I swear I didn’t want to freak you out. Or pressure you into saying it back. I planned to say it much later, in a better moment. Not so soon.”

“I’m glad you did. And for us, it’s never too soon.” Armie kisses him, properly this time, and then scoots back down on the bed, knowing that later, when either of them would ask the other if they ‘remembered the night at the Beverly Hilton’, it would be this that they would think of.

Timmy tries to hold it in, knowing that after he comes, it will mean game over for Armie too. “If you keep looking at me like that it’s—not—” he gasps.

“Like what?” Armie pants, face hovering over Timmy’s.

“Like you’ve never wanted anyth—” Timmy bites into his own arm in an effort to distract himself with the sharpness of the pain.

“But it’s true.“ Armie keeps moving slowly deep inside him. It had taken a while, a long while, actually, but somehow Timmy had managed to take him in, and all the maneuvers Armie had had to do had luckily forced Timmy to concentrate on something else than how hard he’d already been to begin with. Armie had scolded himself, he shouldn’t have let it get that far so early in the game, but he had loved the feeling of Timmy in his mouth and had gotten carried away.

Which means that now they are running out of time, both of them. Timmy’s body feels divine closing around his cock and this is something Armie hasn’t even dared to imagine on his own—except for that time in Rome when he’d woken up from a nightly dream and had had to finish the thought in the darkness of the bathroom—and he’s certain that they have no more than moments left of this, at most. He already misses it.

“It’s true,” he repeats breathlessly in Timmy’s ear, “I’ve never—wanted anyone—as much as—”

At that, Timmy’s clutch at the back of his neck tightens and he has time for an ‘_oh, fuck, Armie_’ before his teeth sink into Armie’s shoulder as he comes.

“Do you still need to get home tonight?” Timmy asks as Armie gets back from the bathroom.

It took all the washcloths they had to clean up both of them, even with Armie coming within seconds of Timmy and mostly inside him, but now Timmy has slipped between the sheets, blissful and as good as new.

“No, they are in Dallas. They’ll be back on Wednesday.”

“So you can stay and sleep here with me?”

“Yes.”

Timmy waits until Armie has settled under the covers, too, and scoots close to him, skin against skin. “I like that no one knows where we are.”

_No one knows where we are, and no one knows what’s going to happen next_, Armie thinks as Timmy’s still heated body curls up around him.

He imagines text messages from Lena piling up in Timmy’s phone at the very moment, asking where he is and suggesting him to meet with this or that up-and-coming actress at the afterparties, but all of that will be a problem for the morning. Armie just hopes that when that comes and when he wakes up, it won’t be on a ship or in another decade but instead, in this same bed, with this same boy.

A few weeks later, there's a short blurb in the Hollywood trade papers about Timothée Chalamet changing his publicist. That piece of information comes and goes, doesn't cause a stir.

Their luck runs out six months later, however, when the tabloids run a story that, for once, is true: Armie Hammer is divorcing and the scoop comes from a realtor who claims she's been showing houses to him and Timothée Chalamet.

Armie curses the woman and fires her immediately. Naively, he had overestimated her professional ethics. Apparently this piece of gossip was too juicy for her to keep to herself.

But both Timmy and Armie have teams who support them, and when the media storm hits, everyone is ready to start handling it. A couple of well-placed interviews, a few preformulated sound bites. The plan has been ready to be rolled-out for months, they've just enjoyed keeping everything to themselves for as long as they can. In a world where everything is on show and can be reported and sold, it has felt precious to have something just for themselves.

Still, there’s something to be said about everything being public at last. Armie doesn’t have to let go of Timmy’s hand anymore when they get out of the car; doesn’t need to wait to kiss him until they are safely alone in a room. He can take Timmy out without having to disguise it as a hangout between bros, and their candlelit dinners or movie dates will eventually stop being newsworthy.

Nevertheless, they have the next realtor sign an ironclad non-disclosure agreement and she’s an all-around better choice anyway, because the first house she takes them to might be the one. Armie likes it the moment they step into the living room. The first thing he notices is the large, exposed brick fireplace with a rough-hewn mantel.

“Just think about it,” he tries to sell it to Timmy when the realtor has gone upstairs to take a phone call. “Us, sitting here, chilly night, fire burning.”

“I'm listening,” Timmy says and presses against him.

"We've had friends over for a whiskey tasting, but they've all left, and it's just us with nowhere to be. The firewood crackles and it’s warm here on the couch, so warm that you take your hoodie off, then whatever way too expensive t-shirt you were wearing underneath. The whiskey buzzing beautifully in our veins, I'll kiss you behind your ear, right where you like it, and I’ll pull you to my lap and—"

The story cuts off as the realtor re-enters the room. Timmy pulls away, folds his arms across his back and walks around examining the ceiling, trying to look like a seasoned homebuyer.

"I’m so sorry, I had to take that call. But, how does this look to you so far? I heard you talking, did you have any questions?" she asks.

"No, we were just admiring the fireplace,” Armie replies. “It really makes the room."

"It really does," she agrees, before checking her watch and turning apologetic. "But unfortunately I have to cut this short with you guys today. It turns out that my colleague is sick and I have to go take care of a viewing in Silver Lake in half an hour.”

Timmy spins around and he and Armie exchange a look. They have liked what they have seen so far and it would be a pity to leave before they’ve seen the rest of the house.

“Any chance we can stay and look around?” Armie asks the woman. “We can let ourselves out.”

She considers it for a moment and decides to trust them. “Okay. Just lock up when you leave."

"Thanks, we appreciate it. We'll do that."

As soon as the realtor has left, Timmy drops onto the previous owner's couch and pulls Armie with him by the hand. He scoots next to Armie, rests his chin on his shoulder so close that Armie can feel his breath and asks: “So you were pulling me to your lap? And then?”

_— The End —_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This alternate version was inspired by a million things but they all came from the fic community: magical realism fics by etal and others; a time travel prompt that was sent to me on Tumblr but that I had to decline because I didn’t think I could pull it off as such; all your comments on the original story about how they’d wasted so many years. 
> 
> So thank you, I had excellent fun writing this extra take and it wouldn’t have happened without you <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Updates on Mondays and Fridays. 
> 
> [angel-in-new-york-city](https://angel-in-new-york-city.tumblr.com)


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